Note: i am exercising my right of artistic license by enlarging the "size" of the maps. They are still the same, just much larger. Like... it would take at least twenty-five minutes to walk from one end of "Badwater Basin" to the other. This feels like it will be a pretty long thing, but i'm posting this little blurb to see what people think before I get too invested. If anyone wants to maybe proofread, let me know. :) i freely admit that this was inspired by the beginning of A Fine Lie, but then it started to grow its own flowers and i just couldn't stop it. If that's not okay, then i'm sorreh. * He ground his bloody teeth together, tried to will himself into death. Engineer was still roaring behind him, all words and coherence absorbed by a make-shift gag. He could hear the RED Soldier breathing heavy, could hear the RED Heavy cursing lewdly. His body trembled with rage and agony - he was bleeding out from shot wounds and he would awaken in respawn within two minutes. But until then - he was forced to lie here, bear witness and die. Demo tried to speak and failed. Engineer had quieted some, now wheezed in time with the Soldier's gasping breaths. Uniform cloth, stiff with starch and crusted blood, rustled insistently. Engineer choked. The Heavy whispered something. Demo coughed. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son : and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world without end. Amen. The Soldier came with a grave huff and Demo fell into nothing. A shock of cold shot up his spine and he was standing, wavering on his feet in respawn. Automatically, he reached for the flask permanently attached to his waist. The liquid bit his throat and made his eye water, but it helped clear his head. Demo patted himself down quickly, making sure everything was still there. Sometimes respawn glitched and forgot a finger, a weapon, spy's head... but no, he had all of his gear. He waited, wondering if Engineer would pop up soon. There was no way Engineer could survive the gaping slash in his side for much longer. Courtesy of that fucking RED Yank's shovel. He didn't know if he should wait. What that RED had done... it happened in war, sometimes. But there was no way to predict how Engineer would react. There was a curse to his right, a rolling American voice, and Demo turned. "Hardhat," he blurted, "Is... there anything I can do?" That was the only thing he could offer and Demo felt his heart go cold at the blank look on Engineer's face. "Men are ugly to each other. Fact of life." He did his own pat down, voice thin. "But, if would be nice, if I could have a swig of your brew." He gestured, almost shy. Demo unclipped the flask, handed it to Engineer. "Keep it, lad. I got dozens." "Thank you kindly, Demo... means a lot." The Texan wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He glanced at Demo, confirming that it was indeed okay to keep the flask, and pocketed it. "I'm gonna stuff that shovel up that -" "HEY WHAT ARE YOU FUCKS DOING WE GOT A CART TO PUSH," Scout materialized with his mouth open, as usual, and smacked Engineer's hardhat off as he blazed out the door. Engineer's face shifted in a way that Demo couldn't read, but quickly smoothed back to the casual smile. He retrieved his hardhat, pulled a craft box off of one of the benches, looked at Demo. "Scout's right." "Let's get to it," Demo offered, his voice much stronger than he felt on the inside. They stormed out into the war and Demo left his doubt in respawn. They had a cart to push.
Demo trickled a healthy draught of whiskey into his coffee cup, took a hot swig. He winced. "Jesus Christ," Demo almost spit, "How strong did you make this, Auss?!" Sniper shrugged, didn't look up from his paper, but smiled just a little when Demo took a shot from his flask to clear his mouth. "I thought it was pretty weak, m'self," the lanky man responded, sipped from his mug indifferently. Pyro scolded him from across the room, where he stood in front of a microwave and an oven. Plates full of toast, scrambled eggs, and pancakes covered the counter in front of him. "You're a prick sometimes." Demo dumped his cup in the sink, noticed the second coffeemaker on the counter. "Too right. Hardhat made softer, if you want that instead," Sniper explained. "Thank God," immediately, Demo moved to the second pot. It was significantly less full than Sniper's vile brew, and proved to mix well with Demo's beloved Lochan Ora whiskey. "Where is the Yank?" "I'm not his keeper." Demo took the plate of pancakes that Pyro happily offered him, took a seat across from Sniper and drowned the cakes in syrup. The door swung open and Soldier went straight to the fridge. He drank a half-gallon of OFFICIAL MANN CO. ARTIFICAL ORANGE FLAVORED BEVERAGE PRODUCT every morning without fail, to wash down the five pieces of dry toast and two tins of SAXTON HALE'S VERY OWN ARTIFICALLY FLAVORED "SHIT LIKE YOU" MEAT FOOD that followed. Pyro removed the steaming plate from the microwave, pushed it across the table towards Soldier, his mask somehow managing to convey his disgust. The pink cube of meat pulsed as it bubbled and reeked strongly of salt. "WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET SOME GODDAMN BACON," Soldier bellowed through his fourth piece of toast. Pyro chittered at him, waggled a finger. "OR AM I GOING TO HAVE TO EAT PIECES OF SHIT LIKE YOU FOREVER." "You say that every morning," Medic quipped as he appeared. A chorus of quiet "good mornings" greeted him, he was one of the few teammates that everyone liked. "GOOD MORNING KRAUT." Well, almost everyone. Demo finished his pancakes in a few large gulps and fled the room before it got too violent. He didn't feel like dodging syringes this early. He excused himself, barely noticed among the scuffle, and escaped to the hall. There was still forty-five minutes until they had to report to the front. Doubt nagged at the back of his mind. Should he go find Engineer? He swallowed from his flask, blinked a few times. He still had to check on his grenades and bombs, verify their stability before he went lugging them around a field. Demo's lab was clean, but cluttered and dusty with powder. In fact, everything he owned had a vague grittiness to it, from his clothes to his flask. It was an inescapable side effect of making bombs constantly. And trying to make bigger bombs. Better bombs. He settled on his stash, packed up the ammunition for proper carrying on the field. Engineer had avoided him the night before, hadn't even come to dinner. Demo had wanted to go find, him, talk to the Texan, but couldn't bring himself to walk the fifty feet from his lab to Engineer's workshop. It was best to leave the man alone, let Engineer go on his own terms. " --- ?" Demo's thoughts were interrupted by the light knock on the lab door, still hanging open a few inches. He turned in time to see Pyro carrying a fistful of blue and yellow feathers. It was pointless to ask, but the urge remained. "Yeah, I'm coming bowling," he answered the firebug. Blue rubber squeaked as Pyro shuffled towards him, poked over the grenades that Demo had already checked. "--, ----. ---- ---'- -- --- ----!" Pyro started to stick feathers in all of the grenades, as though that was his exact intended purpose for having the feathers in the first place, and looked pleased when Demo didn't remove them. "I just wasn't feeling it last night," Demo shrugged, began to load grenades into his launcher. "------ ----'- ---- --------- -----." Demo felt the frown tug at his face, "Hardhat didn't go bowling either?" He should have known. He really should go talk to the Yank. "Hey firebug, I'll see you on the front, okay? I'm going to go see if I can't talk to Engineer." Pyro chirped in agreement, waved, and left. A few feathers trailed in his wake and Demo swallowed. The door to Engineer's workshop was thick steel, and rung hollow when Demo tapped his knuckles against it. He could hear music inside, a lone guitar, a few notes before it stopped. Had anyone else visited Engineer? He waited, breathing slowly, but the guitar started back up. He couldn't bring himself to knock again, and skulked back to his lab.
Maybe it's because I'm stupid but I have no idea what's going on.
I've got some nitpicks. The nicknames you had Demoman calling the other classes seemed off. The beginning of the story confused me because I thought Scout was narrating...he's the only one who calls Engineer "hardhat." "Auss" and "Yank" also sounded odd to me, although to be fair, I have no idea if they're actual slang or not. (When I hear Yank, I think of the Civil War.) The way you write Pyro's dialogue was confusing, as well. His first "word" being followed by Demoman's actions made me think that Demo was making some sort of surprised noise at the knock. The second line was more clear in being Pyro talking (due to the context), but it still seems an awkward way to write it. Not everyone writes Pyro's mumbling as something that can have sense made out of it, but I personally would much rather see an attempt to sound it out, or at least some sort of "mmph mmph" dialogue. I'm interested in seeing where this story heads, but it does seem rather confusingly laid out. Why does Demo care so much? Is it just concern from their shared circumstances? Although I'm not sure I have a perfect picture of what happened in the beginning. I read it as both Demoman and Engineer being raped while on the verge of death. If that's the case, what are Demoman's thoughts about what happened to him? If not, then what exactly is going through his mind concerning Engineer? I can buy him not knowing how to handle a delicate situation like that, and being hesitant. I guess really, I just want more info. (Also, where was the rest of the team when this was happening? How did they get captured and put in that position? There are a shortage of details.) I'm not going to lie though, I laughed pretty hard at the "shit like you" joke. Anyway. tl;dr, I am interested, but I'd like to understand more of what's going on.
3 It is highly doubtful that you are stupid. It is more likely that i am doing something wrong. 4 The different nicknames are intentional. Same with Pyro's morse code. I don't like the morse code, but i don't like the "mmpf mmpfh" either. WHAT DO? the shortage of details is apt, i will work on it. thank you for any and all crit, even if it's just a cheerful "hey you suck". * Heavy collapsed to the ground in front of him with a last roar, and Demo could see Medic hightailing back along the track with Pyro. Demo tucked himself into a corner, out of the line of sight, and slipped into a door. He could hear a sentry beeping in the distance; upstairs, maybe. Soldier came bustling behind him, tried to knock him over but Demo was too used to the American's rough-housing. "It's gonna take more than that to knock me around," Demo jeered amiably, and checked Soldier into a wall. Soldier cackled in response and smacked him on the back so hard his organs shook. The two of them came up on Engineer's nest, where Engineer was alone with his machines. Gunfire and rockets whistled in the distance. "Their Sniper was on the left," the Texan informed them, face blank, "I think he got Scout." All three men frowned – the RED Sniper was significantly better than their own and, while nothing could be done about it, it was still a sore point. Before a reply could be made, they were interrupted by the characteristic gasping of a flamethrower. Instantly, Soldier burst out the door and launched himself into the air with a mighty bellow. Like an angel from hell, he landed on the RED Pyro's shoulders and crushed the man's skull in one fell swoop. Demo flanked his teammate, shot grenades down the choke point, glanced behind him to see Scout, Medic and Heavy on the cart again. "Let's go!" After so long, it had all become so automatic. There would be a sentry around this choke point, a level three. There would be stickies on the corners of buildings, hidden in places that seemed clever the first fifty times. It was easy to fall into the routine, easy to be lulled into some kind of pseudo-security where death was real but without consequence. It was rare that someone was captured. There was no need really, and both BLU and RED emphasized a take-no-prisoners mentality. It was rare, but common enough that Demo hated himself for not noticing Engineer's absence sooner. The RED Soldier and Heavy had been far from the rest of their respective team, had isolated Engineer from his nest and driven him into RED territory. He had arrived on accident - the RED Medic had ubered a Pyro, and a resulting airblast had blown Demo into the sky. He crashed on a roof, bloody but conscious, but was not prepared to roll into a skylight that shattered beneath his weight. "Demo!" Engineer's voice had a weird quality, something that Demo couldn't place, until he saw - Engineer frantically kicking, his overalls unclipped, weapons gone, the RED Soldier and Heavy holding him down. The two REDs were faceless to him, and all Demo could see was that bright scarlet screaming in his vision. He physically beat the Heavy, the closest one, with his launcher, but sudden shots in his belly took all the fight out of him. The sawn-off shotgun had been hidden on a shelf, Demo hadn't seen it, and he tipped backward on his ass. He was dizzy with vertigo and pain from the fall, in agony from the bullets in his belly. He was still watching Engineer fighting off the Soldier. Engineer had a fighting chance - Demo's surprise entrance had distracted the Soldier long enough for Engie to land a few hits. The Soldier backed off, just a little, and Engineer sat up, tried to stand but was knocked down again when a shovel bit into his side. Demo saw the gush of red blood dye Engineer's blue clothes black. "Let - go of me - you sorry motherfucker!" Engineer blared, indignant as he was pinned on his belly. The Soldier restrained Engineer's arms with his knees, still wielding his shovel. His free hand was wrapped around the back of Engineer's neck, pressing the BLU into the floor. Engineer's overalls had been yanked down to nearly his hips and he yelled wordless sounds in protest. The Soldier was trying to get Engineer's clothes off. The Soldier was trying to get Engineer's clothes off. In Demo's moment of shock, the Heavy caught him across the face with one huge fist. Demo felt his jaw break and blood filled his mouth. He spat angrily, wrath renewed, but the RED Heavy was able to truss him up quickly. He was tossed ungraciously into a corner and Demo breathed out slowly as the pain in his gut blossomed. Engineer's cries were suddenly muffled, but they didn't stop. "Keep quiet," the Heavy admonished through his thick accent. This can't be happening. Engineer made a different sound, one Demo had never heard him make. The Soldier groaned and Demo thanked God that he was facing the wall. "That's it," the RED Soldier mocked, "Nice and easy, partner." Nice and easy.
Umm...I think I understand the story so far, but after I read the latest chapter I'm getting confuse now. Is the event in >>5 happen before >>1 ? From what I understand, BLU Engie and BLU Demo got caught by RED Heavy and RED Soldier. Engie got raped while Demo could only watched, he could not help Engie because he was injured. (Demo did not get raped, from what I understand) Then they died and respawned and Engie now avoid his team, especially Demo, which make Demo worry because he know what happend. Am I understand this right? English is not my first language so maybe I misunderstand. Your story is interesting, I will look forward to read some more so maybe I will understand what happen in the story. P.S. I'm sorry if I made mistake in grammar/tense/ect. As I said, English is not my first language but I'm trying to get better. Thank you.
You're a bit rocky in places with wording etc but there's nice flow in places. I have high hopes for you. And what a rarity, a fic written from Demo's perspective! It's nice to see his character fleshed out when he's so often forgotten.