1 . Name: Tare @ 2011-10-12 01:35

Oh look. I got distracted. I PROMISE MORE NIGHTMARES SOON. But I needed something a bit more light-hearted. This is part one of two...possibly three, but I only have two planned. We'll see what happens. I blame this totally on my love of classic rock and a WONDERFUL find I made today that put a scene into my head that was just too damn perfect not to write. Also, I blame Heavy, because the man is always singing.

Anyways, here. Read. I hope it doesn't suck!

~~Part 1~~

Man cannot live by violence alone; not healthily. The RED and BLU teams fought battle after bloody battle, and even the threat of death was not enough to keep it from getting stale. Not with Respawn there to catch them when they fell. It began to get harder and harder to dredge up the desire to keep fighting. Despite the danger of burnout, RED and BLU liked it this way. They liked to keep their pet mercenaries in their own little worlds, in their own little cages, away from what was happening in the rest of the world.

Because the rest of the world was falling apart.

The year was 1968. The United States was at war on two fronts now. The communist government in North Korea had taken the crew of the errant USS Pueblo as hostages. This came as a shock to nobody, but the rage and helplessness fueled the fires that were burning inside the American people. The Korean War was supposed to be done. Over. But the communist North Korea still delighted in sticking a knife in democratic America’s back whenever it had the opportunity.

Vietnam had turned from a confident, easy campaign into a nightmarish bloodbath. The government couldn’t keep the pictures and the video under wraps and off the television; the media made sure that everyone knew just how many soldiers were dying per week. Soldiers that were there, for the most part, against their will. As more and more draftees were called up to replace the newly dead, the horrors only grew.

The youth of the United States was in full revolt; those of age were burning their draft cards and dropping out of high school, disappearing from their homes to live like gypsies with groups of like-minded kids. Massive protests blocked city streets; anti-war rallies that ended in tear gas and fire-hoses, if not bullets. The peaceful Civil Rights demonstrations led by the late Dr. King had ended with his assassination in April, only to pick up much more violently and angrily. Millions cried when the second Kennedy brother, Robert, was shot; destroying the hopes of the many who had campaigned to get him into the Presidential race.

And things were not much better overseas. RED and BLU were even more careful where their foreign agents were concerned; it would not do to let team mechanics and strategies be affected by the goings on of the outside world. The Soviet Union had invaded and annexed Czechoslovakia, and their oppressive new regime there was already stained with blood. France was folding in on itself; her people fighting like trapped animals against their government and its police. Revolution seemed imminent. Germany was still, twenty years later, making amends for World War II; still holding trials for men accused of being Nazis, accused of war crimes. Old men now, many of them, who some cried should be allowed to live the rest of their lives in peace.

With all of the protests and revolts going on in the world, RED and BLU did not want their teams getting any ideas. They determinedly kept them cut off from the world. They existed only in the little worlds that the companies had built for them, and sometimes the tiny towns beyond, backwards hick places where nobody talked of war or politics. Incoming mail was steamed open and read. Outgoing mail, if there was any, got the same treatment. The companies took no chances.


But the isolation ended the day that the RED Engineer let out a triumphant yell from his workshop, throwing all of his considerable attention at his newest victory. It was a radio he’d scavenged from town and repaired to be like new. He’d modified an antennae, and then re-modified it, and then amplified it…and finally, finally it had struck signal and come to life.

It wasn’t ideal. There were only four stations, and none of them were news, none of them were sports. Soldier was angry about the former, Scout about the latter. But what they found they now had in abundance… was music.

New music. Not Soldier’s old Elvis records, not Demoman’s bagpipe recordings; and certainly nothing like Medic’s German operas or Heavy’s Russian composers. They weren’t totally behind the times… they hadn’t been fighting this pointless war for THAT long. Everyone knew who the Beatles were. The Supremes. Johnny Cash. But the familiar sounds of voices, and the exhilarating experience of hearing a favorite band singing something new, it began breathing life back into a team that had been slowly losing it.

The first thing Engineer did was figure out how to rig up the radio in their small common area. Hardly anyone used it anymore, aside from the odd movie night, or Heavy and Medic having one of their three-hour long chess matches. But with the radio there, they all began to come together again. Scout played air guitar on his bat to the Rolling Stones, trying to pout his lips like Mick Jagger. Sniper listened with rapture to powerhouse singers like Janis Joplin and Grace Slick, getting into fights with Soldier over his “hippie-funk-noise”. Demoman’s drinking even started to take on a less self-destructive edge, and he would change the station sometimes to listen to Otis Redding and Smoky Robinson. Pyro became very fond of The Doors, and when “Light My Fire” came on, nobody was allowed to talk if Pyro was in the room.

Eventually everyone had a song they’d heard and craved to hear again. Soldier began to do horrible Elvis impressions on the battlefield after a particularly impressive and successful maneuver. Pyro would sing loudly behind his mask, but was so terribly tone-deaf that nobody knew what it was, even by melody. Engineer’s wordless guitar ramblings had been replaced with purposeful playing as he picked out melodies by ear, adding harmonies with a voice that was surprisingly good.

Heavy had always sung both on and off the battlefield; his big voice booming equally loud from the showers or over the spin of his minigun. The entire team was used to hearing classical Russian symphonies belted out in a voice like gargled gravel, but nothing could have prepared them for the first time Heavy sang from the radio.

On the battlefield, Ubercharged with grenades and bullets exploding all around him, Heavy started to sing the Beatles.

“HEY JUDE,”came the bass roar. “DON’T BE AFRAID. I AM SIMPLY~~~ GOING TO KILL YOU~~” the snippet of song degenerated into thunderous laughter, and the REDs close by were powerless against their own.

Not even Medic was immune. No, oddly enough, Medic seemed to be one of the most affected. While he eschewed Sniper’s psychedelic rock, and wrinkled his nose at anything with too much electric guitar, he could often be heard humming to himself in the shower, in the halls, at dinner, even on the battlefield. He seemed to share many of Heavy’s tastes, which surprised exactly nobody, and in Medic, Pyro found a fellow fan of Jim Morrison’s voice, if not some of his songs.

It was somewhat of a relief to the team, actually, to have Medic back amongst them. During the last few months, he’d shut himself in the infirmary, blasting Wagner on Heavy’s record player, and nobody had known what he was on about. Now, of course, they knew. He’d been inventing the Ubercharge, having a stroke of genius that he just wouldn’t allow others to interrupt. But even after the new procedure’s spectacular debut, Medic had stayed somewhat aloof. Now, more often than not, he was in the common room with the radio on, playing either chess or a complicated looking Russian card game that Heavy called Eralash and offered to teach to anyone who asked.

Heavy had never quite seemed to sink in on himself like so many of the others on the RED team had before the radio came along. But with Medic smiling more and even laughing now, his relief was ill-hidden. All in all, the team felt better than they had in a long time, and it showed on the battlefield. They massacred the BLUs, who comparatively seemed drawn and haggard. Engineer had commented that it was almost enough to make a man feel sorry for his enemy. Almost. Right now, victory tasted too sweet.