There was a fluttering and a smattering of coos as we entered the operating theater. "Where does Doktor want boxes?" "Put them anywhere, I will get to them." I waved Heavy off. No matter how many times I try to get them to roost elsewhere, the birds return here. Not that they don't liven the place up... Well, mostly they are not so much trouble. Hippo perched on my shoulder as soon as he saw me, to be petted, and I stroked his head gently. "Who's a pretty boy? Who's a good bird? Ah, Hippo... don't tell the others, but you are my favourite." "I thought Archimedes was Doktor's favourite." Heavy chuckled, coming up to stand behind me. "Ach, nein. Archimedes is the troublemaker! Hippo is a good bird." I stroked his head again and set him down on his habitual perch. "Mostly." Hippocrates settled right down, on the bust of his namesake. I watched Heavy reach out, tentative, to pat the bird's head with a single finger. His almost childlike delight was... cute. I suppose most birds would have been too frightened to let him pat them... I was just about to see to the boxes he'd helped me bring in when I noticed that something was wrong. "Eumenides!" I scooped the bird up. "Where is Euripides?" "Maybe bird is outside." "No no no... Euripides is never far from Eumenides. They are my only mated pair!" There were other mated birds, I am sure, but of the few who made their homes in my operating theater, and consented to be named and petted, Euripides and Eumenides were the only pair. They were never far from each other... They flew out together sometimes, but they returned home to roost together. They did not take turns, they had no eggs for one to stay home and protect. They would have no eggs-- my only mated pair, and I was still fairly certain both were male. I was fairly certain all of my birds were male... "Maybe Doktor make mistake. Maybe have wrong bird." "Only Eumenides has this little gray spot on his forehead," I showed him. "Which little bird is Euripides?" Heavy asked me. "I will look." "No, no..." I looked down at the listless little animal in my cupped hands. I didn't need to know the particulars of Euripides' final fate... I knew what I had to know. "Doktor?" "He was the biggest one, he-- That is how you could always tell him apart from the others. Anyway, they-- they're just birds." I set Eumenides down. "Look on bright side." He clapped my shoulder. "Doktor's favourite bird is alive." "Yes." I glanced back at Hippo. As individual birds went, of course Hippocrates was my favourite-- he was well-behaved, and as birds go, seemed to me to be intelligent. He didn't get into things the way Archimedes did, he wasn't as noisy as Homer, always squawking and flying into things. But Euripides and Eumenides had been my only mated pair... as unconventional a pair as they were. That counted for something. "I am being silly." I said. "Getting sentimental over a bird." "Is okay." Heavy thumped my shoulder again-- gentle, for him. Still enough to send me half a step forward. "Heavy is sometimes sentimental." Heavy is sentimental over Sascha, which is a bit different. Somehow. I feel silly being sentimental at all, I suppose, but I feel a little better being given the 'okay' by one of the most hardened killers on the team. "Does Doktor want to hold funeral for little bird?" Heavy offered. "Danke, no." I smiled at him. "Probably a predator has... already performed that duty. Anyway!" I dusted my hands together and turned to the boxes. "Work?" "Work." I said. Silliness and sentimentality shall have to wait. Work calls.
A very sweet portrait shot of our Medic and his birds.
Aww. Tell me there's more? This is really sweet. I love it.
Yuusssssss. Someone else is writing about the birds! And that someone has also named one of them Hippocrates! Yusssss. I feel less silly now. This was sweet. Seconding request for more!
!!!! I see the relationship you slipped in there with Euripides and Eumenides = Heavy and Medic, but here's hoping the death of Euripides doesn't foreshadow anything...
Aw, thanks for the kind words, y'all. I don't have any more about Medic and his birds at the mo, but I'm glad my one-shot was well-received! I had to name one Hippocrates! After we got Archimedes, I thought Medic might be the type to go for theme-naming, and I made them all Greek. (and I certainly didn't mean Euripides as foreshadowing, but I figured it would upset Medic the most if he subconsciously thought of it as The Heavy Bird too...)
Please let there be more, this has a great start. You even set yourself up with those mysterious boxes and the work that needs to be done. If not for us, do it for science!
FOR SCIENCE! You've exploited my weakness... now I have to write more! ---two--- My experiments ran on late into the night. I could not have done without Heavy-- holding the lamp when I needed more light, bringing me coffee when the hours stretched on, and of course the lifting and carrying of the more... weighty components. Finally, the first phase of the work was done. We slept the sleep of the just. The next morning, I read over my notes while I ate breakfast, and when the cricks in my neck and the tightness across my shoulders proved to be an insurmountable distraction, there was a pair of strong, sure hands to knead them out. "Sometimes, my friend, I don't know what I would do without you." I told him. The moment was awkward, for a while. My sentimentality again, I suppose. But he was at least pleased. I could tell that much, he was pleased. Phase two was... disappointing. "What was supposed to happen?" Heavy asked me. "Not that." I picked up the Scout's spleen. He had only come in for a routine check-up... Well, he will respawn. Guinea pigs are needed, after all. But I will need to dispose of some of the more dangerous elements of my experiment. "Archimedes, no!" Heavy grabbed him and set him down on the bookshelf, where Archimedes, scamp that he is, began making friends with the Scout's kidney. Well... I suppose I could let him have it. "Doktor needs help with mess?" "Bitte, yes." We managed to keep most of the birds out of things. Archimedes got into the bits of Scout, but not into the failed experiment itself, and one of the outside birds that had followed mine in through the window and gotten itself trapped drank a bit of the solution, but I was only going to toss that out anyway. "We can try again tomorrow." I said. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. That was from Hamlet, wasn't it? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day? I remember seeing it on television, with Maximilian Schell... it wasn't very good. You can't blame Shakespeare, of course. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare comprises half of the 'library' on the base, so I've read the play since. I don't know why the television film came to mind first. Just tired, I suppose. By the time we'd scrubbed most of Scout from the walls of the operating theater, I was very tired. Heavy seemed indefatigable. I threw out the solution, no good anyway, and went back to my notes. The machinery itself would stay. Only minor adjustments needed there. And then it would be a matter of more guinea pigs... they would all have to come in eventually, to say 'ah' and sit about and breathe while I listen, to have their files updated... I would rework the machinery, and then when that was done, the Demoman. Him or the Soldier. We could run a successful test with one or the other, once everything is recalibrated. And tomorrow Sunday! I would have the whole day to recalibrate the machinery! "Tomorrow," I yawned, patting Heavy on the arm. "You will come hold the lamp for me again, yes?" "Da." He yawned as well, stretching until something popped. "Tomorrow... hold many things..." "You are asleep on your feet." I accused. Finally, though, I privately thought. I had been flagging for what felt like hours before he showed the slightest hint of tiring. "Da." "Bed." "Spasibo." Tomorrow. Tomorrow we would triumph.
This is ADORABLE. Pleeeease write more.
I like the friendship between the two, it's very calm and subtle.
Science called, they said thanks. You have a talent for writing 1st person POV and I am hatin on it. You make it seem so natural. The thoughts flow great, Medic's character is perfection, and...well...you captured this anon's heart. This is totally my favorite story on the chan. Never stop writing.
You're welcome, Science! (and thanks, everyone, for being awesome readers!) This used to be better, but I lost about half a chapter and had to try and remember what I had, so bear with me, and hopefully I remembered all the important bits. ---three--- "That was... not so bad." I said, watching the Soldier's body slump forward, until it landed with a loud smack face-first on the floor. "Dead?" Heavy crouched, lifting one arm. It dropped back to the ground with a thud. "Ja, ja, but not exploding. Progress!" I started for the door. "We should meet him down at the respawn point, in case he requires an explanation..." It wasn't a long jaunt over, but when we got there to see Soldier appearing, he merely grunted and nodded. "Some check-up!" He said, and then he was off, as though dying in the middle of a routine examination was nothing unexpected. It is possible he doesn't remember-- he would not be the only one, who cannot recall the moments that come before respawn. My own memories are always mercifully hazy, and I know Heavy never remembers how we got there. It phases no one now, whether we remember or not how we died. I try not to think of the deaths that I remember, and I am thankful for the deaths that I forget. I am thankful for the deaths my friend forgets. "I have an idea." I told Heavy, as we walked back to the theater. "A secondary mechanical component, that could provide some stabilization. I still have some of the things the Engineer left me, the last time the Medigun needed repairing." "Good." He pats my back. It is always jarring, but never unwelcome. The open and easy affection could not possibly be, when I have gone so much of my life so much without. I like being on a team, a good one. A better one, when my experiment bears fruit. I like being a boon to them, and once the work is done, more than ever I will be an asset to my team. Perhaps it does not always seem so, that I am a team player, but when the bullets are not flying and I am not trying desperately to keep men from being killed before they can attain their objectives, I do not think I am a hard man to get along with. Heavy does not think I am a hard man to get along with. He, he is a born team player. And he understands me, in a way the others I don't think do. The others would rather not spend very much time around my work, even if they appreciate the outcome. I was always a solitary child, and not always by choice... I had friends, of course, on and off through my adult life, but they were never the kind of friends you could count on for your life. They were other medical students and doctors, usually. The sort of friendships that pass the time when you are together, but when one party or the other leaves, the bond is forgotten after some little weeks. Well, should this war ever end, I do not think I could ever live long enough to forget any of my teammates. I cannot conceive of a time when my friendship with our Heavy might end. No, even if the war does, we... we might retire near each other, I think. Me with my birds, and... and he will come by for tea, in the afternoons. Funny to think of us, old men, with scrapbooks full of pictures of, of Sascha. Yes, that is how it would be. Photo albums of the two of us charging onto the battlefield, and that gun in the forefront. Well, now I am just being silly. And I have too much to do, to start being silly now.
"Ja, ja, but not exploding. Progress!" I giggled. Medic will become the crazy old bird guy. That weird one who lives in a house full of the damn things and who all the nearby adults thinks is mad but the kids love because he has loads of jars full of pickled organs and gross things like that and tells weird war stories. Damn, now I'm being silly. This keeps getting more adorable by the minute! Continuuuuuue!
Medic mulling over how much he likes being a team player is what makes me proud to be a Medic.
Some how I can see medic with a green house type structure in his yard full on birds and plants when he retires. I AM A FAGGOT HUMP MY RUMP Please let there be more. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!
'Medic will become the crazy old bird guy. That weird one who lives in a house full of the damn things and who all the nearby adults thinks is mad but the kids love because he has loads of jars full of pickled organs and gross things like that and tells weird war stories. ' That's both adorable and freaky at the same time. I'm seeing like, Despicable Me meets the Human Centipede or something. Or something straight out of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. "No, this one has quite a story behind it! You see, I was alone, a Spy had taken down the Heavy I was healing(I killed him, of course, afterwords, depleting my syringe gun of ammo), and I was in enemy territory. Suddenly, from the nests, a Sniper jumps at me with his kukuri! I stab him in the stomach and pluck out his eyes while he's dying. Snipers are nothing without their eyes, you know! I just had to keep them for good measure. A sort of trophy, of you know what I mean. Anyway, that's how I got these. ...Did I tell you about the Pyro in ColdFront?"
Crazy bird man Medic is a beautiful thing. The birds will perch all over Heavy and Medic will think it's cute, so Heavy will let them do it. Whenever he's around, the neighborhood kids will kind of hide behind the hedge and spy on them, and they'll be too nervous to go over because of course he'll have Sascha, but then he'll see them and get all excited and invite them over for tea and cookies and horrible tales of gory battle funtimes, and he and Medic will tell competing versions of all their war stories, and talk over each other about who saved whom... Yeah, maybe I think about this a lot... (Also, maybe it's clear from how I write him that I main Medic... And yeah, the way I see it, even if he doesn't necessarily have an easy time making/being friends with everyone, he's got to be a team player, or he wouldn't be doing that job, he'd just be... I don't know, kidnapping and experimenting on hobos somewhere. So while being able to run experiments on his teammates is a VERY enticing bonus, the performance and well-being of said teammates on the field is something he's got to have a vested interest in now.) ---four--- I fell asleep at my desk at some point, and was awoken by a loud explosion. This was not unprecedented, but never before had the explosion come from so near my own little base of operations-- off-the-clock explosions come from the Demoman's shed full of dangerous things, usually. To have something explode just outside my office window at dawn was... unusual. Still being dressed from the night before, I headed out into the corridor to see if anyone else had been rudely awakened. I saw the Soldier disappearing around the corner, heading for the door, and Heavy coming around that same corner, heading for me. "Doktor is all right?" He came to a stop, panting. "Doktor is all right." I nodded. "It was outside. But... I fell asleep on my notes." Heavy smiled and swiped at my face with one thumb. "There is ink on cheek." "Lovely." I licked my own thumb and tried scrubbing at the spot, not that it would do so much good, and of course I worked blind. Heavy just chuckled and patted my arm. "Doktor works too hard. Is weekend." "Weekends are when I can get the most done." "Come, we will see who interrupted Doktor's beauty sleep." "It is hardly beauty sleep when I pass out at my desk and wake up with ink on my face." "Ti takaya kraslvaya." He snorted. "I will go give someone piece of mind." The Scout zipped past us, heading out to the site of the explosion, but he paused briefly. "Like you could spare a piece! Hey! Hey, where's the fire?!" Heavy rolled his eyes. Scout hasn't seen Heavy's bookshelves-- I couldn't tell you what was on them, I couldn't read a word of it, but there were enough books there, and large ones-- nor has Scout tried to beat him at chess, or he wouldn't think the man slow. One of these days, I swear, that boy is going to get himself walloped by one of his teammates instead of just his enemies... but, so far, he's kept just to the safe side of everybody's own personal line. Outside, we found the rest of the team had gathered around our Sniper, who looked just as confused as the rest. Surprising that they consider him the source of things. Our Demoman is not in attendance, but I did not expect him to be-- it is the weekend, he is still with his mother, that is why the explosion could not have been his doing... But the Sniper's? "Who is blowing things up outside my window?" I demand. Behind me, Heavy cracks his knuckles. Sweet of him, but I can intimidate under my own power-- after all, inoculations can be gentle, or they can be... difficult. Sniper merely points a shaky finger towards a few scorched feathers on the ground. Not one of my birds, I know this immediately, because mine sleep indoors and have grown to be somewhat lazy-- they don't go out at dawn to find food. Just one of the area birds, who... Who drank the unstable solution I had to throw out. I did not think about proper disposal-- there didn't seem to be too much danger in merely tossing it out until a better way to deal with it could be found, but I see the open canister lying under my window. "All right. Henceforth let it be known." I coughed. "Don't shoot the birds." "I am gonna shoot so many birds." Scout laughed. I pinched his ear. "Have your fun, boy, but if you hit one of mine, you will suffer the same fate." "Yow!" He rubbed at the side of his head and glared at me, acting the abused party. "You already blew me up anyway. I just wanna hit the exploding ones, anyway." "Mine will not explode." "This is side effect?" Heavy whispered to me, when the group dispersed. "So it would seem, my friend." I gathered up the scorched feathers, though I couldn't say why.
EXPLODING BIRDS OH YES. I am camping this thread. This is going to be BEAUTIFUL. I'm actually not surprised to learn that you main Medic - I do too. It's like being the entire team's mum, amirite?
Pfffftttt you explained the exploding birds! Heck yeah! I love how you make everyone interact with each other. Scout stopping in his tracks for an insult. Heavy watching out for Medic. So adorable. Mum, nanny and older sibling anon 18
I just love your Scout, the little scamp he is. I laughed when he had the same reaction i did when they find out the birds explode.
Hey Anne. Here are a couple things I wanted to say about this story (in lazy-ass bullet point format b/c I have not properly woken up yet): - I'm glad you decided to expand this from a one-shot. Thank you for that. It's an enjoyable story. - I like the tone of this piece. The voice is very good. I think my favorite thing about it so far is the elegant understatement of crucial bits of character development (e.g., Heavy's intellectualism, and the depth of Medic's feelings -- the sentence "I am thankful for the deaths my friend forgets" alone is more genuine and well-thought-out than some entire fics are). I think that about covers it. Carry on.
So THIS is why I can stop only hanging around afanfic and come to fanfic.
This is deffinately one of the best fics I have found so far. Please keep up the good work.
Baw, y'all flatter me. This one hasn't come as fast as the one I'm writing in afanfic, so I apologize for the wait time... ---five--- My experiment fared no better with the Demoman on the receiving end. It is enough to make a man lose his faith, in himself if in nothing else. I haven't had much faith in any higher power since I was a boy, anyway... "Pah." Heavy lifted the fresh corpse up off the floor-- a needless gesture, it will disappear when he respawns, but a kind one, perhaps-- and placed it back on the table. "Next time." "There is nothing else I can think to fix." I shook my head. "The machine is as refined as I know to make it." I sliced him open, as long as the body was still there. I should have done so with the Soldier, stupid of me not to. Still, I suspect the same problem... "What is the matter?" Heavy cracked a rib back for me. "See for yourself." I motioned to the goop filling the cavity. "I thought he would be stronger, but this is a deficiency in my test subject. I cannot dial her back any further, it will not work if I dial her back any further. The science is willing, my friend. The flesh is weak. Kleine herz..." "Deficiency is in test subject? They are all baby men, then. Machine works good?" "Machine works too good. Unless-- No." I shook my head. I wouldn't ask. The potential was frighteningly good, yes, but... it seems doomed to failure. "Sorry I have already been checked up. I am no baby man." The offer was touching, if an empty gesture, but a week later, when I had him in the infirmary, I remembered it. "What trouble have you gotten yourself into without me?" I stroked his forehead as he lay back on my table, as the scalpel cut into him. I kept the healing beam on him, set on low-- it was safer with any surgery, so long as it was kept low. Of course when you turn it up too high, the wounds heal before the work can be completed, but on low it will keep a patient well and strong until whatever needs removing or resetting can be seen to. "BLU Heavy." He grumbled, wincing only slightly as I spread him open. Well... he was halfway to being open anyway. "Is my own fault. I did not protect my Doktor, so when I met him... he had his..." "It was only a little death, it happens to the best of us but it's nothing we can't come back from. Still... maybe... maybe next time it doesn't have to happen. My goodness, what did he do to you? He didn't just shoot you?!" "No. Pick up heavy things, then... dark and fuzzy, but the round ends before I can die, so I come here." I finish digging the major offender out of him-- almost put my poor back out doing it, and if carrying the Medigun around all the time hadn't made me stronger, I would have. I'm not young anymore... I am not young anymore, no, neither of us are. But soon it won't matter. Age, infirmity, injury... those are things of the past. My gloves were slick with blood, too slick to find purchase if I came across any more metal in him, so I stripped them off before plunging back in. My hand found healthy muscle, larger than my own fist. The stroking of fingers over the fibrous pericardium and the way it slid over the parietal was soothing somehow. And I remembered the week before. "Perfect," I whispered, squeezing gently. The back of my hand brushed something metal. "Doktor?" "Ach, I thought I had it all... No matter." I plucked a bullet out-- nothing, really, compared to the load I had already removed-- and tossed it over my shoulder. I moved the light so that I could get a better view, in case there was more. "How long will this take?" "That really depends on how many times you were shot, doesn't it?" I tutted. "Lie back, lie back. Here, I never told you this story. This happened before the man I interned under fl-- moved. It was him and me and Franz. Now, Franz is-- well, he is dead now, he did not survive very long after... that part is not the funny part, of course, but if I had just been allowed to finish, I could have saved him, you know?" "I know." Heavy grunted. "Doktor is good at saving." "Danke. Anyway, Franz is in for a routine examination." I found another bullet, tossed it away. So many... He survives so much... is so large, so strong... and he offered. "We open him up on pretense. And... well, Franz is under heavy anaesthesia, he is out. And scientific curiosity being what it is, the two of us working on him... we ask some questions. We wonder, what can a man live without? How would it change him, things like locomotion, you know, the effects. At first it was only going to be his legs, but you know how it is to be carried away by your work..." I couldn't help a giggle at that. I feel bad, a little, since things ended the way they did, but while he lived like that, it really was hilarious! We could have fixed Franz, if they'd let us-- Josef hadn't even waited to see if they would, the bastard. He was terrible like that, he would give you an idea and then he would just abandon it! I wanted to see things through, but of course... Well, the one who gets caught stitching back up an 'abomination' is the one who gets censured. Still, when he'd been alive after... seeing him flop around like that... It was too funny. A pity there was no respawning then-- well, not a pity, no, but... In Franz' case, it might have been good, since Josef wasn't going to stick around to help me put the bones back. "So what happens?" Heavy asked. Biting back on my laughter as best I could, I answered.
OH. MY. GOD. I love this fic with all my heart. Your Medic is BEAUTIFUL and absolutely insane in the best possible way. I await more with enormous anticipation and no small amount of squealing.
I laughed really hard and now I want to hug something. Medic is an adorable mad scientist here and I love it so much. The tie-in to Meet the Medic works quite well, by the way -- I've seen some stories where it was really just shoehorned in, but it's an entirely natural progression here. Well done!
Still loving this fic, and the thoughtful Medic/Heavy romance.
Thank you, everybody! I'm not sure where to go from here now that I've reached the MtM video jump-off point... Maybe with that storyline tied up, I should just write mildly angsty fluff about Medic's love for Heavy, I don't know... I mean, it was all going to be a one-shot until I realized I wanted to write about why the birds explode and everything spiraled from there... so who knows. Anyway, the kind words have meant a lot, you guys.
I would LOVE mildly angsty fluff about Medic's love for Heavy. Don't write if you don't want to or will force it, though - but you're a great writer and I would still love this fic even if you chose to stop here. I love how there's these subtleties and small details that just jump out at you how massive their impact is too - Medic reflecting on his age, his profession, his gratitude towards Heavy, everything.