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I don't play the game, but someone who does showed me all the 'Meet The Team' videos, and this has been niggling at me ever since 'Meet the Medic'. It is, please pardon the language, fucked up beyond belief. I have never written anything like this before, and I sort of don't know what to do with it. So. Ah. Warnings in advance, heed all the warnings, and I'm so very sorry.
Title: The Tell-Tale Heart
Rating: HARD R
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Characters/Pairings: Heavy, Medic, Heavy/Medic
Summary: "Do you know ze first time I saw my own heart, Heavy?" Medic offers Heavy an utterly horrifying demonstration of adoration, as only Medic can
Wordcount: 4015
Warnings/Notes: GORE, BODY HORROR, MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION, MEDICAL TORTURE. Backstory, World War II, mention of the camps. Horror, romance, love, declarations of love.
Disclaimer: God, not mine.
Title: The Tell-Tale Heart
Rating: HARD R
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Characters/Pairings: Heavy, Medic, Heavy/Medic
Summary: "Do you know ze first time I saw my own heart, Heavy?" Medic offers Heavy an utterly horrifying demonstration of adoration, as only Medic can
Wordcount: 4015
Warnings/Notes: GORE, BODY HORROR, MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION, MEDICAL TORTURE. Backstory, World War II, mention of the camps. Horror, romance, love, declarations of love.
Disclaimer: God, not mine.
The Tell-Tale Heart
"Do you know ze first time I saw my own heart, Heavy?"
Heavy swallowed, dragging his eyes away from the red line the scalpel traced through flesh, looking instead to the face of the man wielding it. Medic ignored him. He was focused on the scalpel himself, watching it part the skin of his chest with a strange, hungry fascination. Despite himself, despite not wanting the Doktor to see, Heavy shuddered a little at the sight of it.
He would not be ruled by such babyish urges, however. He straightened himself, awkward though it was from his fragile perch beside the operating table, and made himself hum encouragingly at his friend.
"Nyet," he said, careful to keep all uneasiness from his voice. "Doktor did not tell me this story yet." He paused, and then chanced a little: "Though, am not sure if now is really time ...?"
Medic giggled. He'd finished the Y-cut now, and reached out with thick, red fingers to peel apart the flaps of his own flesh, baring the bones and organs beneath. He did it delicately, almost reverently, and there was a shine in his eyes like the über, a gleam of godlike madness. Heavy held still. He very carefully held still.
"No better time," Medic hummed, tracing the lines of his rib cage absently, fingering the bones as if choosing where best to cut. "Surgery is alvays ze best time for stories, mein freund. Man is never more open zhan vhen his organs are on ze table, ja? Is alvays ze best time for sharing. Ah. Pass me ze shears, vould you?"
Heavy glanced a little wildly around, and found the heavy bone shears lying carelessly on the table beside him. He picked them up gingerly, and handed them over to the Doktor. Medic took them with a grateful 'ah' and promptly proceeded to snip happily at his breastbone, dismantling it enough to be able to lever things out of the way. Heavy grimaced queasily. Battle was one thing, blood and bone and organs were not new sights, but there was something about Medic's quiet glee that always made him a little alarming to watch. No-one should love bodies this much. Not like this.
"Anyvay," Medic managed with a grunt, finally levering the bulk of his ribs out of the way. "Vhat vas I saying? Oh, ja. Ze first time I saw my own heart. It vas--"
He cut off, with a strange, shivery little sigh, as his blood-coated hand finally made contact with his own organs. He closed his eyes, for half a second, and shuddered in what looked like raw bliss. Heavy clenched his hands, wishing dearly to look away, but not quite daring. His friend had asked him to be there for this. The Doktor had asked him to watch, to take part, and he had asked it shyly enough that Heavy had not been able to refuse. He could not go back on that now. He would not be coward. He would see this through.
"Es war wunderbar," the Doktor managed, after a second. He opened his eyes languidly, only a bare crack, and peered up at Heavy's strained face from beneath his lashes. He looked ... he looked blissful. He looked filthy, in a way Heavy had never wanted to associate with ... what they were doing. "Oh, mein freund. Es war ... Es gibt keine Worte. It vas amazing."
Heavy tried a smile. It didn't work very well, so he settled for looking curious instead. The Doktor didn't appear to notice. Perhaps he was too far gone, but Heavy thought it might be more than that. He had long suspected that there were certain parts of reality that the Medic was never particularly inclined to notice. Uneasiness in the face of surgery was one of them, as were several social niceties. It was not as Heavy had first thought, that the Doktor simply ignored them, it was more that he honestly didn't realise they existed. So the Doktor did not notice his unease, or the falseness of his smile. He simply nodded happily, assured of Heavy's interest, and rambled idly onwards.
"It vas ze camps, you know," he said absently, and Heavy stiffened in his seat. Almost violently, though the Doktor didn't notice that either. They did not talk of this. They never spoke of the Great Patriotic War, though Heavy had long suspected that the Doktor had played some sort of role in it. Him, and everyone else as well. "Zhey showed me ... Ah. Zhey showed me ze future. Zhey showed me ... so many zhings, mein freund. Gods und men. Ze universe. My own heart." He giggled. "Ja, ja, my own heart. Zhat most of all."
This was more than unease, now. Heavy was well and truly alarmed. He reached out, very carefully, and rested his hand on the Medic's arm, well away from the hands still stroking idly through hidden flesh. He averted his eyes from the red fingers playing through pink organs, and leaned over instead to focus the Medic's eyes on his face, to make the Medic see. After a second, the Doktor seemed to blink free from his blissful haze a little. Enough to raise a questioning eyebrow up at him.
"Doktor," Heavy said, letting concern and a little fear colour his voice. There were times when fear was not only allowed, but to be encouraged, the better to keep people alive. He thought this might be one of those times. "You do not have to speak of this. We speak of something else. Is not time. You--"
"Heavy," the Doktor said. Just that. He said it calmly, though, and with a little curl of amusement. Heavy stared down at him, his stomach roiling queasily within him. The Doktor reached up, with those strange fingers, and patted gently at his cheek. Heavy could feel the wet slide of fluids down his face, beneath the warmth of the hand. "Is alright, mein freund. I told you, ja? Vhen ze organs are on display, zhat is ze time for sharing. Ve have lots of time. Ze medigun vill keep ze pain at bay for a long vhile yet. You vill let me continue, von't you? I vould like it."
Heavy hesitated. He did not want to continue. He did not think this was a story that would end well. But he had ... he had promised to be part of this. He had promised he would let the Doktor show him, tell him, whatever it was he wanted. He looked hard into the Doktor's face. This was ... what the Doktor wanted, yes. And so.
He pulled carefully away from the hand on his face, and sat down beside the operating table once more. He squared his great shoulders and, after a moment of very visible apprehension, he nodded. "Da," he said. No more. English would not be good enough for this. But it was enough. The Doktor smiled, that huge, tooth-filled grin, blithely cheerful once again, and all Heavy could do was sit there and hope that they would both survive this. Not physically. He hoped they survived with those invisible parts that respawn could not fix.
"It vas late in ze var by ze time I vas sent zhere," Medic continued, leaning his head back and staring blindly up into the theatre lights. His fingers wandered back into his chest cavity, tracing the underside of his remaining ribs, grazing just over the top of his pulsing, über-augmented heart. He seemed to sigh, tension rolling out of him. He seemed, Heavy thought sickly, to be drawing comfort from the sensation. "It vas ... but I zhink you can guess ze reason, ja? Mein Heavy. You know vhat zhey vill have sent me for."
Heavy did. They had done enough things together, wedged precariously onto bunks or in the dark corners of the showers, for him to know what Medic was. Not even a wife could disguise that, if a man was careless at the wrong moment. Medic must have been. He always did let his passions carry him away. It was easy to imagine him slipping, and easy to imagine the consequences. Heavy remember the gulag, what happened to such men there, when they were careless. He did not imagine that the camps had been much different.
"Zhere vas a doktor," Medic went on. His voice had softened, become dreamy, but his hands had become more frenetic, curling convulsively inside his own chest. "He vanted ... He had found some australium, ja? Und he did not vant to share it. He vanted to experiment. To see vat it could do, vhen combined with human flesh. Vhen he saw me, vhen he heard of my interests, he decided zhat he vould let me be a part of zhis experiment. Part of ze great vork. To make men into gods. You understand, mein Heavy? I vas going to be ... somezhing new. Somezhing wonderful. He vas going to change me, ja?"
"... Da," Heavy whispered, closing his eyes again. Not cowardice. Some things were not cowardice. "This is why ... You heal faster, Doktor. This is why, da?"
"Ja, ja!" Medic explained, beaming proudly up at him. "Exactly, mein freund! It vas ... Vell, it vas not completely successful, it vould take my own work before somezhing like ze Medigun or ze Über vould become possible, but zhat man ... he had ze beginnings, ja? He set me on ze path. Und those weeks ... Oh, mein freund. I cannot explain. Es war ..."
"Doktor ..." Heavy tried, hoping to cut him off. He did not want to imagine it. The Doktor was his friend, the Doktor was more than his friend. He did not want to imagine this. This was not battle. It was not war. It was ... pain, and helplessness, and torture. He knew that, even if he was no longer sure if Medic did. It was nothing he wanted to picture.
But Medic was inexorable. He was excited, one hand coming up out of his viscera to gesture excitedly in the air. The memory was something else to him, and he could not stop telling it now.
"It did not work very well at first," he said, face twisting in a wry grimace. "Ze pain ... It vas very bad. Ve had left my torso open, ja, with ze ointment, ze australium treatment, smeared across ze important bits. Topical first, ja? Injection later. I vas ... I could not move, und ze pain ... But zhen, zhen I got used to it, Heavy. Or ... somezhing. Is hard to remember exactly. I came through ze pain, und I saw ... I could vatch my heart beating. Und my lungs. I could vatch ze air inflating my lungs. I felt ... It took so long. Days, I zhink. Ve left me open for quite ze vhile, to see vhat ze effects would be. But zhen ... I felt different. I felt ... Ze beat of my heart, my own heart. I could see it. Vhen he moved me, a little, vhen he put my hand in my chest, I could feel it. I could hold my own heart in my hands und feel ze beating of it. It vas ..."
He trailed off. An expression came across his face, something Heavy had never seen before. Not on the Doktor, at least. Not on any living man. It was the face that bodies in the snow sometimes wore, people who had frozen to death. It was a peaceful expression, an open serenity full of warmth and bliss. The death dream, where a frozen man feels warm again, only because he is too close to death to feel otherwise.
Transport. Heavy had heard the word used for something like it. The place where the mind reaches Heaven, while the body dies around it. Yes. He knew that expression, and knew it had no place on a living face.
"I felt ze universe," the Doktor whispered, still lost in that remembered bliss. "I could hold it in my hand. Ze heart, Heavy. It's in ze heart. Ze body. Ze organs. Men, ve are made in ze image of God, und zhat is vhere ve find Him. In ze flesh. In ze beating of ze heart. In ze weight of it in ze hand. I felt it zhen. I knew it. Zhere can be no fear, vhen zhat is vhat a man knows. Everyzhing, all ze power in ze universe, lies vithin a man's flesh. All zhat must be done is to ... bring it out, haha!"
He waved again, droplets of blood spattering from his fingers, and Heavy caught that flailing hand in his own. He couldn't have explained why, in English or in Russian. He simply ... had to do it. He had to grab hold, to grip that slippery, blood-warm hand in both of his, while its owner blinked up at him in startled warmth.
"Da, Doktor," he said desperately, into the Medic's happy, vaguely confused expression. "I know this. I have seen it, da? I have seen you."
He stood up. He held tight to that hand, so small compared to his own, and looked down at the man laid open on the table beneath him. The Doktor was so fragile, here and on the battlefield, whether fully clothed and armoured or laid open for all to see. He was such a tiny man. But underneath that ... Underneath that lay the madness. The fire and the fury. That unholy gleam in his eyes that set Heavy's blood on fire, that made even slow, sluggish limbs quicken and tremble. All the power in the universe, the Doktor said, and Heavy could see it. He had felt it, had felt the overwhelming, godlike rush of invincibility at the Doktor's hands, had heard the wild, cackling laugh of the man behind him all the while, and he had gloried in it.
Heavy did not believe in gods, not anymore, but if he did, then he thought the Doktor must not be too far away from them. This tiny man, who had been laid open before an enemy, and found the universe in his grasp instead. That must be something close to godhood, if godhood was any real thing at all.
"I have seen it, Doktor," he whispered again. It was painful, but there was triumph in it. The love he felt for this man was a thunder through his veins, and through the heart that the Doktor himself had given him. "You showed me, and I have seen."
Blind happiness passed across the Doktor's face. Heavy almost flinched from it, from the expression too close to transport yet again, but the Medic was not lost in memory now. He was real, and present, and turning his hand in Heavy's to grip it better, and use it to lever himself upright. His chest gaped open at the motion, the bones quivering and the flaps of skin falling haphazardly back across it, organs tumbling gently within the cavity, and Heavy felt a rush of ... of horror and terror and lust and love, so great that it weakened his knees. He was helpless before this man, this crazy, terrible, impossible man. There was no-one in the world to compare.
"Mikhail," the man panted, holding himself up with trembling arms by the strength of his grip on Heavy's hands. "Liebling, ja, yes! Show you. Zhat is vhat I ... Oh! Here, here, put me down. I vill show you. On ze table, now!"
Heavy considered, very briefly, reminding the Doktor that he himself had been the one to move, not Heavy. He refrained, though, and gently lowered the man back down, so that his back lay flat against the table once more, and his chest passed back into the healing beam. He staggered, a little, at that realisation. Medic had levered himself out of the beam with an open chest. But that was not the point. The man was mad. It had hardly mattered to him.
"Ja, like zhat," Medic muttered. He let go of Heavy's hands and wriggled around a bit, trying to get comfortable, and all his insides gleamed so wetly up at Heavy.
His stomach lurched, matching its motion to the Doktor's beneath him, and for a moment he could not understood just how, of all things, this man was what he loved. But he was. The truth pulsed steadily in Heavy's chest, and could not be denied. He loved the Medic, perhaps all the more for being terrified of him.
"Here," the Doktor said, finally looking back up at him. He wore a smile, now, something half between crazed and terrified and fond, and it hurt something in Heavy to see it. Hurt, or maybe healed. It was all the one, with this man. The Doktor pointed to his own chest, waving both his hands in a beckoning gesture. "Put your hand here, liebling. Put it inside my chest. Take my heart inside it."
Heavy stared at him. Somehow, even after all that had been said, somehow, he had not expected that. He opened his mouth, mute and numbskulled, as Scout always called him, but he could not help it. For once, he genuinely did not know what to do.
Medic did not wait for him to figure it out. He grabbed hold of Heavy's hand, just the one of them, and tugged it impatiently down towards the ... the moist, writhing sea of his own organs. Heavy recoiled, tried to recoil, but the Doktor could be surprisingly powerful when he wanted to be. He could be inexorable, and kill a man quicker than winter. Heavy felt his fingers press unstoppably down into the wet warmth, and watched almost distantly as the Doktor gently uncurled them to cup them around the heavy, powerful weight of muscle. Around the heart, still beating in the Doktor's opened chest. Around the universe, cradled in the man's hands.
"... You can feel it, can't you?" the man whispered softly, watching Heavy's face. "Misha, liebling. You can feel the universe in your hand. Tell me you can."
"... Da," Heavy whispered back, hushed and thick and rough, and he was crying. He was spilling warm, salt tears across his arms and into Medic's open chest. The man beamed at him, smiled in genuine, loving delight. "Bozhe moi. Bozhe. I feel it."
"Ze world is better, vhen you can see ze heart," Medic told him, wrapping his deadly hands around Heavy's wrist, keeping his hand plunged into his chest, into that horrifically intimate shrine. "I have held your heart in my hand, liebling. I have given you a new heart. If you vant to, you can do ze same. Zhis is ze heart I saw, all zhose years ago. You can crush it in your hand, if zhat is vhat you vant. Ve are not men anymore, Misha. Ve are gods. You can do with me vhat you vish, und I vill do ze same to you, und ve vill alvays, alvays, come back again. Feel zhat. Feel ze power in your hands. You can do anyzhing. Und I vant you to. I vant you to have anyzhing zhat you vant. I love you. I zhink ... I zhink zhat is vhat it means, ja?"
He said that last a little uncertaintly, his head tilted to one side, and Heavy felt something tremble through him. A blind terror, worse than anything he had ever felt, and a strange, aching tenderness, pinpricks across his skin, a sense of something tearing in his chest. Love. I think that is what it means. Love, yes. Heaven help them both.
He closed his eyes, and ... and squeezed gently at the thing in his fist. Not enough to rupture, not enough to crush or to burst. Never, ever that. He only squeezed it, that beating thing, very gently in his massive hand, and then let go. He opened his eyes, and pulled his hand from his lover's chest. The Doktor watched it go, strange-faced and confused. Heavy cupped his hand around his neck, instead. Heavy held him very gently in his hands.
"... I want," he said, slowly and thickly. His tongue wanted to stutter on the words, and he would not let it. English was the only language they had in common, and that meant it would obey him. This must be said correctly. "I want Doktor to be happy. I want ... Doktor to be strong, and crazy, and happy. I think this works better with Doktor's own heart. I want Doktor to keep it, then. And maybe ..." He hesitated, still sick, and forged on, as he always had, no matter what came against him. "Maybe Doktor will show it to me sometimes? To remind me. To show me ... what he is?"
He didn't want that. He didn't know if he wanted that. But there was something in the Doktor's face. Transport. Bliss. He wanted that. And there had been ... He had felt something. Something like the universe, yes. This man's heart in his hand, this powerful, terrifying creature completely open beneath him. Resting that terrible thing inside his fist. It had been ...
Es war wunderbar. It was wonderful.
"I vill show you," the Doktor agreed, nodding eagerly, wild and happy around his promise. "As often as you vish, liebling. You may have me as often as you vant."
He didn't know what he was promising, Heavy thought. He had left that understanding behind him twenty years ago, with his chest laid open by a torturer's hand, to make him part of a great work. But he didn't care, either. He was not a man anymore, to be afraid of what could be done with a promise. He was a god. And gods could make whatever promises they liked.
And gods, too, could answer them.
"... Lie down, Doktor," he said softly. He rested the man's head gently back against the table, smoothing his hair with stained, aching fingers. "I will get Medigun. Is time to put you back together, da? You have been open long enough."
Medic nodded, almost sleepily. His exuberance had faded, and he barely waved his hands in agreement at all. "Ja," he nodded. "Ze pain is beginning to arrive. Sehr gut, mein freund. Ve close me up. Sehr gut."
Heavy breathed, slowly and carefully, around the clawing thing in his chest. He patted the man's shoulder gently, watching the Doktor's eyes slip closed. When he had mastered himself enough, he went to dial the Medigun higher, back up to full healing strength. The Medic ... Heavy thought he was asleep. He had exhausted himself. He had passed through transport into that smaller death. Heavy watched his organs disappear from sight beneath the healing beam. He watched that heart be hidden once again, watching ribs and skin cover that terrible secret back over. He felt ... oddly, he felt a sense of loss. Of possessiveness and loss, of horror and maybe lust. He felt so many things, and all of them terrible. All of them evil, and perfect, and wrong.
He felt love. For the sight of this tiny man, for the hideous, godlike strength of him, for the terrible fragility, for the beautiful, manic joy. He felt something too big, too strong, for even this new and mighty heart he had been given. He felt something so strong he thought that it might kill him.
He felt something so strong he thought that he might want it to.
And somehow, he thought, watching the pale flutter of those eyelids at rest, he felt only the palest shadow of what lived in that now-closed chest. He thought that this creature in his hands knew more of love and horror and terror than he had ever hoped or feared to experience. It was a mad thing, a crazed, impossible thing, and no-one could know more about it than this man, who had shed his skin so long ago, and become transformed.
It was ... It was more than a man could bear. Perhaps it was fortunate, then, that Heavy had stopped being a man some time ago. Now, he was a god.
And gods could handle anything.
A/N: Particular apologies for any offense caused from the history mentioned (and inaccuracies in it), for the mangling of the accents and languages, for any canon inaccuracies given my extremely limited exposure to canon, and for ... Shit. Well. All of it? I honestly don't know where this came from.
"Do you know ze first time I saw my own heart, Heavy?"
Heavy swallowed, dragging his eyes away from the red line the scalpel traced through flesh, looking instead to the face of the man wielding it. Medic ignored him. He was focused on the scalpel himself, watching it part the skin of his chest with a strange, hungry fascination. Despite himself, despite not wanting the Doktor to see, Heavy shuddered a little at the sight of it.
He would not be ruled by such babyish urges, however. He straightened himself, awkward though it was from his fragile perch beside the operating table, and made himself hum encouragingly at his friend.
"Nyet," he said, careful to keep all uneasiness from his voice. "Doktor did not tell me this story yet." He paused, and then chanced a little: "Though, am not sure if now is really time ...?"
Medic giggled. He'd finished the Y-cut now, and reached out with thick, red fingers to peel apart the flaps of his own flesh, baring the bones and organs beneath. He did it delicately, almost reverently, and there was a shine in his eyes like the über, a gleam of godlike madness. Heavy held still. He very carefully held still.
"No better time," Medic hummed, tracing the lines of his rib cage absently, fingering the bones as if choosing where best to cut. "Surgery is alvays ze best time for stories, mein freund. Man is never more open zhan vhen his organs are on ze table, ja? Is alvays ze best time for sharing. Ah. Pass me ze shears, vould you?"
Heavy glanced a little wildly around, and found the heavy bone shears lying carelessly on the table beside him. He picked them up gingerly, and handed them over to the Doktor. Medic took them with a grateful 'ah' and promptly proceeded to snip happily at his breastbone, dismantling it enough to be able to lever things out of the way. Heavy grimaced queasily. Battle was one thing, blood and bone and organs were not new sights, but there was something about Medic's quiet glee that always made him a little alarming to watch. No-one should love bodies this much. Not like this.
"Anyvay," Medic managed with a grunt, finally levering the bulk of his ribs out of the way. "Vhat vas I saying? Oh, ja. Ze first time I saw my own heart. It vas--"
He cut off, with a strange, shivery little sigh, as his blood-coated hand finally made contact with his own organs. He closed his eyes, for half a second, and shuddered in what looked like raw bliss. Heavy clenched his hands, wishing dearly to look away, but not quite daring. His friend had asked him to be there for this. The Doktor had asked him to watch, to take part, and he had asked it shyly enough that Heavy had not been able to refuse. He could not go back on that now. He would not be coward. He would see this through.
"Es war wunderbar," the Doktor managed, after a second. He opened his eyes languidly, only a bare crack, and peered up at Heavy's strained face from beneath his lashes. He looked ... he looked blissful. He looked filthy, in a way Heavy had never wanted to associate with ... what they were doing. "Oh, mein freund. Es war ... Es gibt keine Worte. It vas amazing."
Heavy tried a smile. It didn't work very well, so he settled for looking curious instead. The Doktor didn't appear to notice. Perhaps he was too far gone, but Heavy thought it might be more than that. He had long suspected that there were certain parts of reality that the Medic was never particularly inclined to notice. Uneasiness in the face of surgery was one of them, as were several social niceties. It was not as Heavy had first thought, that the Doktor simply ignored them, it was more that he honestly didn't realise they existed. So the Doktor did not notice his unease, or the falseness of his smile. He simply nodded happily, assured of Heavy's interest, and rambled idly onwards.
"It vas ze camps, you know," he said absently, and Heavy stiffened in his seat. Almost violently, though the Doktor didn't notice that either. They did not talk of this. They never spoke of the Great Patriotic War, though Heavy had long suspected that the Doktor had played some sort of role in it. Him, and everyone else as well. "Zhey showed me ... Ah. Zhey showed me ze future. Zhey showed me ... so many zhings, mein freund. Gods und men. Ze universe. My own heart." He giggled. "Ja, ja, my own heart. Zhat most of all."
This was more than unease, now. Heavy was well and truly alarmed. He reached out, very carefully, and rested his hand on the Medic's arm, well away from the hands still stroking idly through hidden flesh. He averted his eyes from the red fingers playing through pink organs, and leaned over instead to focus the Medic's eyes on his face, to make the Medic see. After a second, the Doktor seemed to blink free from his blissful haze a little. Enough to raise a questioning eyebrow up at him.
"Doktor," Heavy said, letting concern and a little fear colour his voice. There were times when fear was not only allowed, but to be encouraged, the better to keep people alive. He thought this might be one of those times. "You do not have to speak of this. We speak of something else. Is not time. You--"
"Heavy," the Doktor said. Just that. He said it calmly, though, and with a little curl of amusement. Heavy stared down at him, his stomach roiling queasily within him. The Doktor reached up, with those strange fingers, and patted gently at his cheek. Heavy could feel the wet slide of fluids down his face, beneath the warmth of the hand. "Is alright, mein freund. I told you, ja? Vhen ze organs are on display, zhat is ze time for sharing. Ve have lots of time. Ze medigun vill keep ze pain at bay for a long vhile yet. You vill let me continue, von't you? I vould like it."
Heavy hesitated. He did not want to continue. He did not think this was a story that would end well. But he had ... he had promised to be part of this. He had promised he would let the Doktor show him, tell him, whatever it was he wanted. He looked hard into the Doktor's face. This was ... what the Doktor wanted, yes. And so.
He pulled carefully away from the hand on his face, and sat down beside the operating table once more. He squared his great shoulders and, after a moment of very visible apprehension, he nodded. "Da," he said. No more. English would not be good enough for this. But it was enough. The Doktor smiled, that huge, tooth-filled grin, blithely cheerful once again, and all Heavy could do was sit there and hope that they would both survive this. Not physically. He hoped they survived with those invisible parts that respawn could not fix.
"It vas late in ze var by ze time I vas sent zhere," Medic continued, leaning his head back and staring blindly up into the theatre lights. His fingers wandered back into his chest cavity, tracing the underside of his remaining ribs, grazing just over the top of his pulsing, über-augmented heart. He seemed to sigh, tension rolling out of him. He seemed, Heavy thought sickly, to be drawing comfort from the sensation. "It vas ... but I zhink you can guess ze reason, ja? Mein Heavy. You know vhat zhey vill have sent me for."
Heavy did. They had done enough things together, wedged precariously onto bunks or in the dark corners of the showers, for him to know what Medic was. Not even a wife could disguise that, if a man was careless at the wrong moment. Medic must have been. He always did let his passions carry him away. It was easy to imagine him slipping, and easy to imagine the consequences. Heavy remember the gulag, what happened to such men there, when they were careless. He did not imagine that the camps had been much different.
"Zhere vas a doktor," Medic went on. His voice had softened, become dreamy, but his hands had become more frenetic, curling convulsively inside his own chest. "He vanted ... He had found some australium, ja? Und he did not vant to share it. He vanted to experiment. To see vat it could do, vhen combined with human flesh. Vhen he saw me, vhen he heard of my interests, he decided zhat he vould let me be a part of zhis experiment. Part of ze great vork. To make men into gods. You understand, mein Heavy? I vas going to be ... somezhing new. Somezhing wonderful. He vas going to change me, ja?"
"... Da," Heavy whispered, closing his eyes again. Not cowardice. Some things were not cowardice. "This is why ... You heal faster, Doktor. This is why, da?"
"Ja, ja!" Medic explained, beaming proudly up at him. "Exactly, mein freund! It vas ... Vell, it vas not completely successful, it vould take my own work before somezhing like ze Medigun or ze Über vould become possible, but zhat man ... he had ze beginnings, ja? He set me on ze path. Und those weeks ... Oh, mein freund. I cannot explain. Es war ..."
"Doktor ..." Heavy tried, hoping to cut him off. He did not want to imagine it. The Doktor was his friend, the Doktor was more than his friend. He did not want to imagine this. This was not battle. It was not war. It was ... pain, and helplessness, and torture. He knew that, even if he was no longer sure if Medic did. It was nothing he wanted to picture.
But Medic was inexorable. He was excited, one hand coming up out of his viscera to gesture excitedly in the air. The memory was something else to him, and he could not stop telling it now.
"It did not work very well at first," he said, face twisting in a wry grimace. "Ze pain ... It vas very bad. Ve had left my torso open, ja, with ze ointment, ze australium treatment, smeared across ze important bits. Topical first, ja? Injection later. I vas ... I could not move, und ze pain ... But zhen, zhen I got used to it, Heavy. Or ... somezhing. Is hard to remember exactly. I came through ze pain, und I saw ... I could vatch my heart beating. Und my lungs. I could vatch ze air inflating my lungs. I felt ... It took so long. Days, I zhink. Ve left me open for quite ze vhile, to see vhat ze effects would be. But zhen ... I felt different. I felt ... Ze beat of my heart, my own heart. I could see it. Vhen he moved me, a little, vhen he put my hand in my chest, I could feel it. I could hold my own heart in my hands und feel ze beating of it. It vas ..."
He trailed off. An expression came across his face, something Heavy had never seen before. Not on the Doktor, at least. Not on any living man. It was the face that bodies in the snow sometimes wore, people who had frozen to death. It was a peaceful expression, an open serenity full of warmth and bliss. The death dream, where a frozen man feels warm again, only because he is too close to death to feel otherwise.
Transport. Heavy had heard the word used for something like it. The place where the mind reaches Heaven, while the body dies around it. Yes. He knew that expression, and knew it had no place on a living face.
"I felt ze universe," the Doktor whispered, still lost in that remembered bliss. "I could hold it in my hand. Ze heart, Heavy. It's in ze heart. Ze body. Ze organs. Men, ve are made in ze image of God, und zhat is vhere ve find Him. In ze flesh. In ze beating of ze heart. In ze weight of it in ze hand. I felt it zhen. I knew it. Zhere can be no fear, vhen zhat is vhat a man knows. Everyzhing, all ze power in ze universe, lies vithin a man's flesh. All zhat must be done is to ... bring it out, haha!"
He waved again, droplets of blood spattering from his fingers, and Heavy caught that flailing hand in his own. He couldn't have explained why, in English or in Russian. He simply ... had to do it. He had to grab hold, to grip that slippery, blood-warm hand in both of his, while its owner blinked up at him in startled warmth.
"Da, Doktor," he said desperately, into the Medic's happy, vaguely confused expression. "I know this. I have seen it, da? I have seen you."
He stood up. He held tight to that hand, so small compared to his own, and looked down at the man laid open on the table beneath him. The Doktor was so fragile, here and on the battlefield, whether fully clothed and armoured or laid open for all to see. He was such a tiny man. But underneath that ... Underneath that lay the madness. The fire and the fury. That unholy gleam in his eyes that set Heavy's blood on fire, that made even slow, sluggish limbs quicken and tremble. All the power in the universe, the Doktor said, and Heavy could see it. He had felt it, had felt the overwhelming, godlike rush of invincibility at the Doktor's hands, had heard the wild, cackling laugh of the man behind him all the while, and he had gloried in it.
Heavy did not believe in gods, not anymore, but if he did, then he thought the Doktor must not be too far away from them. This tiny man, who had been laid open before an enemy, and found the universe in his grasp instead. That must be something close to godhood, if godhood was any real thing at all.
"I have seen it, Doktor," he whispered again. It was painful, but there was triumph in it. The love he felt for this man was a thunder through his veins, and through the heart that the Doktor himself had given him. "You showed me, and I have seen."
Blind happiness passed across the Doktor's face. Heavy almost flinched from it, from the expression too close to transport yet again, but the Medic was not lost in memory now. He was real, and present, and turning his hand in Heavy's to grip it better, and use it to lever himself upright. His chest gaped open at the motion, the bones quivering and the flaps of skin falling haphazardly back across it, organs tumbling gently within the cavity, and Heavy felt a rush of ... of horror and terror and lust and love, so great that it weakened his knees. He was helpless before this man, this crazy, terrible, impossible man. There was no-one in the world to compare.
"Mikhail," the man panted, holding himself up with trembling arms by the strength of his grip on Heavy's hands. "Liebling, ja, yes! Show you. Zhat is vhat I ... Oh! Here, here, put me down. I vill show you. On ze table, now!"
Heavy considered, very briefly, reminding the Doktor that he himself had been the one to move, not Heavy. He refrained, though, and gently lowered the man back down, so that his back lay flat against the table once more, and his chest passed back into the healing beam. He staggered, a little, at that realisation. Medic had levered himself out of the beam with an open chest. But that was not the point. The man was mad. It had hardly mattered to him.
"Ja, like zhat," Medic muttered. He let go of Heavy's hands and wriggled around a bit, trying to get comfortable, and all his insides gleamed so wetly up at Heavy.
His stomach lurched, matching its motion to the Doktor's beneath him, and for a moment he could not understood just how, of all things, this man was what he loved. But he was. The truth pulsed steadily in Heavy's chest, and could not be denied. He loved the Medic, perhaps all the more for being terrified of him.
"Here," the Doktor said, finally looking back up at him. He wore a smile, now, something half between crazed and terrified and fond, and it hurt something in Heavy to see it. Hurt, or maybe healed. It was all the one, with this man. The Doktor pointed to his own chest, waving both his hands in a beckoning gesture. "Put your hand here, liebling. Put it inside my chest. Take my heart inside it."
Heavy stared at him. Somehow, even after all that had been said, somehow, he had not expected that. He opened his mouth, mute and numbskulled, as Scout always called him, but he could not help it. For once, he genuinely did not know what to do.
Medic did not wait for him to figure it out. He grabbed hold of Heavy's hand, just the one of them, and tugged it impatiently down towards the ... the moist, writhing sea of his own organs. Heavy recoiled, tried to recoil, but the Doktor could be surprisingly powerful when he wanted to be. He could be inexorable, and kill a man quicker than winter. Heavy felt his fingers press unstoppably down into the wet warmth, and watched almost distantly as the Doktor gently uncurled them to cup them around the heavy, powerful weight of muscle. Around the heart, still beating in the Doktor's opened chest. Around the universe, cradled in the man's hands.
"... You can feel it, can't you?" the man whispered softly, watching Heavy's face. "Misha, liebling. You can feel the universe in your hand. Tell me you can."
"... Da," Heavy whispered back, hushed and thick and rough, and he was crying. He was spilling warm, salt tears across his arms and into Medic's open chest. The man beamed at him, smiled in genuine, loving delight. "Bozhe moi. Bozhe. I feel it."
"Ze world is better, vhen you can see ze heart," Medic told him, wrapping his deadly hands around Heavy's wrist, keeping his hand plunged into his chest, into that horrifically intimate shrine. "I have held your heart in my hand, liebling. I have given you a new heart. If you vant to, you can do ze same. Zhis is ze heart I saw, all zhose years ago. You can crush it in your hand, if zhat is vhat you vant. Ve are not men anymore, Misha. Ve are gods. You can do with me vhat you vish, und I vill do ze same to you, und ve vill alvays, alvays, come back again. Feel zhat. Feel ze power in your hands. You can do anyzhing. Und I vant you to. I vant you to have anyzhing zhat you vant. I love you. I zhink ... I zhink zhat is vhat it means, ja?"
He said that last a little uncertaintly, his head tilted to one side, and Heavy felt something tremble through him. A blind terror, worse than anything he had ever felt, and a strange, aching tenderness, pinpricks across his skin, a sense of something tearing in his chest. Love. I think that is what it means. Love, yes. Heaven help them both.
He closed his eyes, and ... and squeezed gently at the thing in his fist. Not enough to rupture, not enough to crush or to burst. Never, ever that. He only squeezed it, that beating thing, very gently in his massive hand, and then let go. He opened his eyes, and pulled his hand from his lover's chest. The Doktor watched it go, strange-faced and confused. Heavy cupped his hand around his neck, instead. Heavy held him very gently in his hands.
"... I want," he said, slowly and thickly. His tongue wanted to stutter on the words, and he would not let it. English was the only language they had in common, and that meant it would obey him. This must be said correctly. "I want Doktor to be happy. I want ... Doktor to be strong, and crazy, and happy. I think this works better with Doktor's own heart. I want Doktor to keep it, then. And maybe ..." He hesitated, still sick, and forged on, as he always had, no matter what came against him. "Maybe Doktor will show it to me sometimes? To remind me. To show me ... what he is?"
He didn't want that. He didn't know if he wanted that. But there was something in the Doktor's face. Transport. Bliss. He wanted that. And there had been ... He had felt something. Something like the universe, yes. This man's heart in his hand, this powerful, terrifying creature completely open beneath him. Resting that terrible thing inside his fist. It had been ...
Es war wunderbar. It was wonderful.
"I vill show you," the Doktor agreed, nodding eagerly, wild and happy around his promise. "As often as you vish, liebling. You may have me as often as you vant."
He didn't know what he was promising, Heavy thought. He had left that understanding behind him twenty years ago, with his chest laid open by a torturer's hand, to make him part of a great work. But he didn't care, either. He was not a man anymore, to be afraid of what could be done with a promise. He was a god. And gods could make whatever promises they liked.
And gods, too, could answer them.
"... Lie down, Doktor," he said softly. He rested the man's head gently back against the table, smoothing his hair with stained, aching fingers. "I will get Medigun. Is time to put you back together, da? You have been open long enough."
Medic nodded, almost sleepily. His exuberance had faded, and he barely waved his hands in agreement at all. "Ja," he nodded. "Ze pain is beginning to arrive. Sehr gut, mein freund. Ve close me up. Sehr gut."
Heavy breathed, slowly and carefully, around the clawing thing in his chest. He patted the man's shoulder gently, watching the Doktor's eyes slip closed. When he had mastered himself enough, he went to dial the Medigun higher, back up to full healing strength. The Medic ... Heavy thought he was asleep. He had exhausted himself. He had passed through transport into that smaller death. Heavy watched his organs disappear from sight beneath the healing beam. He watched that heart be hidden once again, watching ribs and skin cover that terrible secret back over. He felt ... oddly, he felt a sense of loss. Of possessiveness and loss, of horror and maybe lust. He felt so many things, and all of them terrible. All of them evil, and perfect, and wrong.
He felt love. For the sight of this tiny man, for the hideous, godlike strength of him, for the terrible fragility, for the beautiful, manic joy. He felt something too big, too strong, for even this new and mighty heart he had been given. He felt something so strong he thought that it might kill him.
He felt something so strong he thought that he might want it to.
And somehow, he thought, watching the pale flutter of those eyelids at rest, he felt only the palest shadow of what lived in that now-closed chest. He thought that this creature in his hands knew more of love and horror and terror than he had ever hoped or feared to experience. It was a mad thing, a crazed, impossible thing, and no-one could know more about it than this man, who had shed his skin so long ago, and become transformed.
It was ... It was more than a man could bear. Perhaps it was fortunate, then, that Heavy had stopped being a man some time ago. Now, he was a god.
And gods could handle anything.
A/N: Particular apologies for any offense caused from the history mentioned (and inaccuracies in it), for the mangling of the accents and languages, for any canon inaccuracies given my extremely limited exposure to canon, and for ... Shit. Well. All of it? I honestly don't know where this came from.
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