1 . Name: Anonymous @ 2009-06-01 12:02

Every repost is a repost repost. By Charshy.

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Inspired by the great Medic-huffing thread in /dis/, with thanks to WTFTastic and Drink Me for beta. <3 Decided to take another angle on the twisted-doctor past from the official Medic profile. I put it in /afic/ for the bloodiness of it. Enjoy.

--- War Wounds ---

For a moment there was just the low rumble of collapsing stone and brick, before the familiar wailing began – not that of the sirens, they'd long become background noise – but the screams, a blend of children, men, women; the injured, the healthy, the dying –

"Son, come on," his father was saying, his voice strained. He was but a doctor, tiny little surgery on the far side of town, but he had vowed to try and help as he could; the hospital could not handle all the injured.

At first, the teenage son had just been bandaging, reassuring the wounded. "Only handle the minor injuries", he had been told. But as the war had stretched on, as the bombings became more frequent and fierce, what constituted a minor wound had changed.

Carrying a rattling bucket of needles and anaesthetic, the young man moved over the rubble where people were screaming, trying to pull the conscious and unconscious alike from the wreckage. He knew what to do by now, his parents scattering to help assess what they could immediately treat.

He had the first body deposited at his feet by his mother – stronger than she looked. She used to be a doctor until the regime forced her from the family business – in theory at least. She still assisted his father.

He prepared the needle. His hands no longer shook from practice, finding the vein with efficiency and delivering the local anaesthetic, the small mercy he could offer the groaning man until surgeons could do anything for his obviously broken, half-crushed leg.

He never looked long at their faces; he was always scared of what he might see, ever since the one time he'd had to help bandage the wounds of one of his ex-girlfriends. He didn't do a lot of dating, and that suited him fine anyway; he didn't care much for girls. But in those times, it was best to look like you did, before questions were raised... questions that the young man already knew the answer to.

But the screaming still went on all around, his parents shouting to each other, trying to help as many as they could as people brought them whoever they had rescued. So much screaming.

"Doctor!"

Everyone made that mistake. He wasn't a doctor. His family were, he was just trying to scrape through college –

"Doctor, please!"

He couldn't cry, not now. They couldn't help everybody... some of the screams had died down now, making actual voices sound clearer.

"Doctor!"

Closer, no longer statistics but individuals –

"Doctor!"

He was shaken, eyes flinging open, covered in a sheen of sweat, being rocked by one huge hand. He was shaking himself.

"Doctor," came the soft, rich voice from beside him.

The hand stroked along his side, in a reassuring fashion, but it all played out before his eyes, even though he was awake.

"Is okay Doctor," Heavy was mumbling to him. "I am here with you."

Medic couldn't reply, couldn't stop shivering, trying to fight the memories flooding back. He couldn't stop them, couldn't stop remembering. It was today's battle, he knew it was, because it reminded him when –

- "hold him still, son," his father had said gravely, looking very pale and ill.

The young man did so, silently, observing the destroyed arm trapped under the archstones of what had been an historical building, the man still attached to it shaking and struggling, and watched his father use the only thing that was to hand to pull him from the wreckage, before the whole thing came down on top of them –

He'd raised the saw, snatched up from a spilled builder's toolbox, and then the screaming began, the blood, and then the /silence/ as the man passed out limp in his arms.

He couldn't look away, appalled and fascinated by the blood and flesh staining the jagged teeth of the saw as his father dropped it, bandaging the stump with trembling hands. The young Medic had been too shaken to help the other victims. He couldn't move, he just stared, still kneeling, at the blood, flecks across his face and on his hands, like red gloves as he held the saw, like some twisted trophy.

He'd kept it. It had a strange power, igniting some fascination in him every time he looked at it. It hurt but it had helped to heal. Pain and suffering were prerequisites to be healed, as was the infliction of it –

He was increasingly independent at his age, not yet in his twenties but still willing to help his parents in anyway he could; they were good people. Good people were also under the suspicions of their local Helfer, for harbouring "undesirables", or whatever spin the Party fancied to put on it. People like /him/, for instance. He was smart enough to toe the line and suffer being alone to stay alive.

He had been terrified of the man. All it took was a breath out of line and he might be reported to someone much higher, taken away like the others he'd heard about. He didn't keep a single picture, not a single line of incriminating writing. He could swear the man could see right through him, and was just waiting for him to put a foot wrong.

Except on that day, when the patient dumped at his feet was the Helfer himself. All that power meant nothing when buildings fell around you. He was conscious, and angry, holding himself together well. "For god's sakes, boy," he said, snappy from pain, wincing, "do something. I'm no use to anyone like this."

Medic nodded quietly, his face pale and serious as he calmly loaded a needle, measuring the clear fluid.

He was much calmer now than he had ever been in the previous bombings. He'd seen children die, seen his parents cry over a friend, a relative that couldn't be saved, seen to the last moments of those dying, who waited for beds in the hospital –

"Thank you," the officer said gruffly, as the needle was withdrawn from his skin. "How long will it take...?"

"Not long," was the simple answer.

He had others to help, but he soon returned to study the dead man. The most imposing figure in his life, dead. A little mix of this and that in the drugs he had been given to administer at his discretion. The man deserved it. He wished it had been more painful. But this way, there were no questions, he was just another victim of the disaster.

After that, it was easy to offer mercy to those beyond help. He was not a doctor, thus he was not bound by the same morals of his parents. He let people drift into sleep, perfecting his mixture, for silent, quiet death. Healing was futile, he realised that now. People broke too easily. He could save them for today, if he could, but it seemed like death was a mercy for most of them. He couldn't take it, how, how could he fix this, make it so he didn't have to let good people die? He couldn't stand to see anymore dead...

"Doctor," Heavy said, more loudly, driving him from his terror for a second, he realised he was wrapped tightly in his arms. He was shaking so badly, then, that the other man was trying to comfort him - Oh god, comfort. The day it was taken from him forever –

September 12, 1944. The bombs fell, his parents had rushed to the scene, whilst he was left to gather up all the materials he could to support them.

And then he'd heard the explosions, louder than ever, as he screamed for his parents, watching as dust and rubble littered the streets beyond. No, oh god no, not them – he'd let everyone else go, but they were the only people left that mattered, the only constants in his life.

He ran out into the destruction – what did life matter now, what did he have left – his parents were dead! He pulled into the rubble, merely one of the screaming masses now, beyond reason. Two good people, two loving parents, both of them, gone, gone forever...

Tears ran down his dusty face leaving silty streaks. He never would forget seeing them, skin torn from bone, as though twisted examples of the human musculature diagrams adorning his father's office. He hugged them, his clothes and arms stained with their mingled blood, the last human warmth leaving them as he sobbed. No one could help him. He couldn't even get up to help others move the debris, like he had always done. He was utterly alone.

He was incoherent, letting out years and years of torment in his tears. Why did the good people die? The only way he'd seen any evil be punished was by his own hands. No, why couldn't he save them? His parents had been doctors. What good had healing done them? They were dead! What was the point?

His fingers snared into his hair, pulling it and grasping into his scalp.

"Medic, stop..."

Heavy's enormous hands curled around his wrists, gently pulling them away so he couldn't hurt himself.

"H-Heavy..." he moaned in agony, trying to keep himself together. He needed to forget, he didn't want to remember!

It was why he was there at all. How he had created the medigun.

After his parents had died, he had done the one thing, taken up the one goal to focus, to keep what shred of sanity he had left: he would make people /indestructible/, so they could not be killed. He couldn't save his parents. He might save others.

He falsified his records, using his father's identity to secure his title, officially a doctor in the state's eyes. After that day, there were no shortage of test subjects – aware or not – in which to enhance and perfect pure death, as well as achieve the impossible. The former was a beautiful poison – undetectable, and could kill or bring to the brink of death depending how much he injected into a likely vein. He found it was beautiful, bringing death, so much easier, hurt so much less than keeping them alive...

His research went unnoticed – thankfully, because he heard rumours here and there where the research of other doctors went. He wanted to /help/ people, just... not through traditional methods. Healing didn't work. It was only temporary. People died.

He was starting to find something, breaking through. He had made a rudimentary device, finding his personal chemical blend was best inhaled, creating a distributing mist. He added colorant to measure the dosage. He intended to bring them immortality, eventually, but for now, invulnerability.

There were a few... accidents. But those people would have died anyway. He /tried/ to save them. Tried to give them the power to be free of pain. When he failed... a strong dose from his syringe would let them be free of /everything/.

The war ended. No more tests or trials, and as soon as he was able he escaped to the U.S.A. There was nothing left for him back in his war torn city. He wanted to never go near it again.

He worked practices under his father's name, travelling place to place in search of solace. He still worked on his invention, refining it, harnessing its power, getting greater access to more varieties of drugs in each station.

Until RED tracked him down. Their sources had been good, to find out about a young man who performed miracles in Stuttgart, and to know exactly what he had made. They offered money, the facilities he needed, and all the test subjects he could want should he capture or kill their rival organisation members. He had hesitated at the thought of seeing death again, but at the same time his hands trembled...

... he would be controlling death itself. Syringes into a gun, they suggested, let their enemies die in silence, cause of death unknown on the autopsy report. With their funding and full backing, let him tweak his medical formulae. Maybe they could offer a more effective distribution method... some sort of fuelpack and a larger spray.

He didn't know or care for the side-effects of his "medigun", as RED dubbed it. What did he care for these people, they volunteered to be part of a war. They knew they might be casualties. He would keep them alive just long enough to be useful, and that was all RED seemed to require.

He was allowed whatever weapons necessary to defend himself. He knew exactly what he wanted to use. It had been carefully packed in all his travels. He kept the saw blade polished to a mirror sheen, but he knew – he knew it could carve flesh and bones. It reminded him of his /purpose/.

Soon enough in RED he achieved his dream – creating an invulnerable state. It had been a tricky formula, but he had done it. The ingredients had to be pressurised at just the right temperature, so it was limited in scope. But he could only imagine what he could achieve if he kept practising, kept experimenting, kept going until –

"Easy, ssssh," Heavy was saying, in the here and now, calming him down with his embrace, nuzzling his neck. "I'm here. Forever for my doctor."

Medic choked back a sob, overcome with shame. He'd used it countless times to keep the other man alive, but what kind of life might he be left with? How long would Heavy's system be able to take the horrific cocktail of drugs for? How could he ever tell him what he had done? He was too scared to begin researching the side-effects. He was scared to know what damage he had wrought, knowing he was destroying the most precious thing he had. His reason to live, and his reason to heal.

And that, more than the memories, was the true nightmare.