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When it came to be Pyro’s turn to receive the Übercharge implant, Medic expected it to be more of a struggle on both their ends – outright refusal, incomprehensible negotiations carried out from behind that gasmask, insistence he do it blindfolded or in the dark, something of that nature. As such, he and Heavy were caught entirely off guard when, as soon as the doors were shut and Pyro was sitting on the table, the mask came off.
Much later, Medic realized that the fact that he had no idea what to expect, starting from the assumption that Pyro was in fact human and going on from there, meant that anything would be a surprise. He might have guessed a mass of scar tissue; nose and lips burned away or half the face twisted up by flames. Not a face unmarred by anything more eventful than aging. The rest of Pyro was much the same. Once he had finished shedding his boots, chemsuit and loose white undershirt, the only burn scar Medic could see was a well-healed wound running up his right arm, down and around his right side. He was clearly younger than Medic and older than Scout – anywhere in between.
Pyro lay back, then propped himself up on his elbows to stare at Medic and Heavy, who were in turn staring at him. He blinked, shivered, then asked, “Are we going to be getting to this sometime tonight?”
It was a display of utter lucidity Medic had never seen Pyro demonstrate, not even with the mask in the way, and it was gone just as soon as the implant was healed into place and Pyro pulled his shirt back on. Even before the mask went back over his face – “So much for that idea,” Heavy muttered – that hazy disassociation from and near indifference to the world and everything around him returned with the same immediacy as it had departed.
Medic would have guessed it as a moment of sheer convenience, something he could guess Pyro would recognize based on his common battle strategies both alone and with Engineer. Then Pyro came to breakfast without his mask the very next morning. He gave no notice to the stares as he took some bacon, biscuits, and coffee and ate them sitting next to Heavy, who scooted farther down the bench. Everyone else stared, stopped staring, and tried to make it look like they weren’t trying to glance over from behind their coffee.
It was as good a hypothesis as any that it was the Übercharge implant that had effected the change. Engineer suggested it was that he had been willing to test the circumstances of going unmasked while protected by doctor-patient confidentiality and a successful outcome had led to his present willingness to forgo his mask around the base during off hours. Scout had shrugged and said nobody could be that crazy all the time. For whatever reason, when the team wasn’t out on the field trying to capture points or secure intelligence, when they had a few moments to breathe or hours to sleep, Pyro was suddenly as willing to walk around maskless as he was to do so in full battle gear.
His willingness to engage with reality remained more or less the same.
This would hardly have bothered Medic if Pyro hadn’t stepped out of his head and into the rest of the world for that singular moment of lucidity in his operating theatre. And it was that the first moment of recognized lucidity had come on the operating table almost bequeathing him with that particular responsibility.
So he watched.
Observed the symptoms.
Attempted to determine a cause.
Respawned a few needless times for his troubles.
Perhaps there had been other such moments in the past, and it had been on everyone else for failing to recognize them for what they were. As it was, they did not come frequently or predictably, but without the mask and full-body suit they could at least be recognized for what they were. The days Pyro’s mask came off, the rest of the team resumed their once-abandoned attempts to reach out to Pyro. Sometimes they were only successful in getting Pyro’s attention, and the look on Pyro’s face suggested it was much the same level of communication as there was between a human and a musk ox, or perhaps a thunderstorm. Still, there were successful days, for a given value of success. Such as the day Heavy had attempted to speak to Pyro in what he’d thought was his native language. He had managed to distract him from some sort of game he’d set up in the base’s lounge area involving salt and pepper shakers, sugar packets, a few odds and ends from Engineer’s kits and pilfered chessmen Medic had long thought lost from the base’s set.
Pyro looked up at Heavy, and Medic saw him give that little shiver again. And rather than staring, giggling, or resuming his game, he asked, “Hang on, what did you just say?”
Heavy cleared his throat and generously repeated himself.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve got no idea what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Ah, nothing, nothing. Just hello, what game is this.” Heavy pointed to a saltshaker. “You speak Mandarin, yes?”
“Sorry, I’m Korean.” He resumed arranging the sugar packets just so, and that was the end of the conversation. A few minutes later, Pyro got up and walked back to his room, leaving the elaborate tabletop battlefield lying in ruins without even a white flag flying for a truce. Medic pocketed the chess pieces, swept up the rest, and chided himself on his curiosity. He was a surgeon, not a researcher. Better to let Engineer or Spy attack this problem – yes, Spy in particular. This was not his specialty, his department, his role. It was nowhere near his area of training or skill.
He found himself writing down his observations that night just the same. And the following night as well, and every night which belonged to a day which had something in it to notice about Pyro.
It wasn’t consistent, but there proved to be a pattern in what pulled Pyro out of his head and into the rest of the world – or pulled Pyro out of his own little world into his head, Medic was not entirely sure which was more appropriate. What he could say with certainty was the short list of things which could bring about the change in states.
The weather, for one. He and Medic had been drinking tea with Demoman – who had needed to prepare a third cup after Pyro had laid claim to Medic’s without any hesitation – and Demo had commented on the early evening rain, how he had smelled it coming over the afternoon. “There’s no mistakin’ the smell of a thunderstorm. Me old dad, now he had a nose for the weather. Even a little bit of a sprinkle, ah, he’d a’ known it’s on its way long before it arrived. It’s one thing t’see it comin’ over the horizon, but t’smell it the morning before, that takes a special man, it does.”
Pyro took a sip of tea. “People always think it rains like this in Seattle. But it doesn’t.”
Demo nearly fell out of his chair and Medic spat his tea back into the cup.
“It’s usually just in winter. I know people that hate it, but I don’t,” Pyro went on, oblivious to the two of them. “You miss the sunshine after a while, but when it’s like this at the end of the day, it gets it all nice and cozy, you know?”
“Yes, I know,” Medic said the moment he untangled his tongue, but it was already too late – Pyro was right back in wherever he’d been. All Medic could do was sip his tea and watch Pyro watch the rain, or whatever it was he saw.
Fire itself was just as likely to push Pyro even deeper inside himself as it was to make him recognize the rest of the world for what it was. Flame itself, or what came after. After a particularly difficult day, Medic had been cleaning and dressing a burn Sniper sustained across his back – third-degree at the very least – and as he set the Medigun to Sniper, turned on a low setting just to make sure he felt it heal to learn his lesson, Pyro saw fit to describe the ways dead tissue had to be excised from such wounds. The temperatures at which bodies would burn and melt, the difficulties in obtaining cadaver tissues for skin grafts.
“What the bloody hell are you on about?”
“It’s all really interesting stuff,” Pyro said. Medic smiled as he held Sniper to the table while he squirmed.
“Ja, quite so. The treatments people are coming up with, the research, as you said, interesting stuff.”
“Yeah. Like how they’ve always used silver to treat infections. It’s not just for killing vampires and werewolves.”
“Still a good idea to save it for those nasties.”
“And now that we have antibiotics, perhaps we can afford to save some for those circumstances. But wouldn’t you say it’s better for sick patients? Ah, there you go, Sniper, and perhaps –”
“Perhaps I might just take a quick trip through Respawn next time an’ spare myself the lecture, right, Pyro?”
“You might…could, maybe…”
“Pyro?” Medic asked, hoping for an answer even as he saw that shroud pass over his eyes. Pyro stared at Sniper, who was still sitting in the Medigun’s beam, and giggled at something only he could see.
“Dunno why you keep tryin’,” Sniper told him over breakfast two days later. “There’s gotta be somethin’ better t’keep yourself occupied, you want a hobby.”
“Well put,” Spy said as he sat down next to Sniper with his own coffee and porridge. “And believe me, as much as I appreciate the dedicated pursuit of forbidden knowledge, some things are best left to their own devices.”
Medic sniffed. “Why? That it might see to its own end without anyone there to even observe its demise?”
“I do not care to speak towards sentimentality. Just to say that this is something which perhaps does not deserve the attention you give it.”
“And I am to trust you on that.”
“No. You are to consider how to see if a particular strategy itself is flawed, or the pursuit entire.”
Poring over his notes that night, Medic had to admit Spy might have something approaching a coherent point. He turned off the lamp but remained seated at his desk, and then pushed himself back violently enough to make the chair scrape over the bare floor, gathered his things, and stalked off for a walk.
Given the hour, he’d expected to have the base to himself, and evidently so had Soldier.
“Halt! I said halt! Are you listening to me, you little piece of sodden entrail-eating vermin? That is a piss-poor excuse for a halt! I’ve seen naval warships that could – oh, hello Medic.”
“Ah, good evening.” Medic nodded at Soldier, and glanced at the raccoon he’d been yelling at that was now preoccupied with licking its genitals. “How goes the training?”
“It appears Lieutenant Bites and I have reached an impasse.”
“Indeed. Please, tell me, have you managed to teach him anything?”
“You doubt me? Admiral Horatio Alger himself couldn’t make the ocean come on command any more swiftly than Lieutenant Bites. Lieutenant Bites, come! Forward! About face and at attention!” The raccoon looked up, flicked its ears, and went back to its genitals. Soldier sighed and shook his head. Then, more quietly, he said, “Lieutenant Bites, approach.”
Medic couldn’t help but be impressed when the raccoon rolled onto its feet and waddled over to Soldier.
“Lieutenant Bites, climb.”
The raccoon chittered as it snagged the fabric of Soldier’s pants, then jacket, and finally clung to his shoulder before righting itself.
“Lieutenant Bites, no biting.”
It let go of Soldier’s ear.
“That is quite a remarkable raccoon.”
“Seventeen weeks of solid training in a variety of environments and circumstances, only the harshest standards applied to performance, I should hope he is! And thank you. Your pigeons –”
“Doves.”
“Yes, yes, your pigeons, how are they in regards to obedience training?”
“Fairly poor, I hate to admit. What methods did you use on your raccoon?”
Soldier chuckled. “You won’t worm my secrets out of me that easily. I follow a time-honored, secret method that only the most fearsome army servicemen are ever trained in, and I would be remiss if I ever revealed it to you.”
“I see.”
“No, really, Medic, I won’t tell you. They made me sign fifteen different non-disclosure forms.”
“In that case, please forget I asked.”
“Already forgotten!” He chuckled, scratching behind the raccoon’s ears. Then without turning to Medic, he said in a voice much like the one he used in his robot disguise except much quieter, “Much of proper technique for best results involves understanding the unique temperament of the individual undergoing the treatment, as there are a significant number of factors which much be taken into account when determining the proper course of training and therapy. In other words, some may break and some may be broken.”
“Pardon?”
“Yes?”
“Nothing.” Medic turned to look at the sunset. “Another quiet night.”
“Possibly. Are your pigeons all locked up for the night?”
“Yes.”
“Then a quiet night.” He turned to leave, spinning on his heel, but before he departed, tilted his head towards Medic and said, “‘He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.’ Keep that in mind.”
“I will. I think.” Soldier gave no sign of having heard, marching back to base with his raccoon still perched on his shoulder. Medic shrugged and went back to his walk.
When he was clearing up the infirmary and trying to get all his doves back into their travel cages the following morning, Soldier’s words came back to him. Pyro was sitting cross-legged on top of one of the operating tables, his mask resting in his lap, watching the birds flit about the overhead equipment. Medic glanced over at Pyro, back to Archimedes, and then back to Pyro and the way his eyes focused and tracked the birds. He didn’t stop, not even after Medic had locked the last cage up, and when Medic turned around after deliberately busying himself at the sink for a few minutes longer than he needed to scrape the guano out from under his fingernails, he was still very much present as he watched the doves grooming each other.
“They’re quite charming, are they not?”
Pyro nodded. “They’re very nice.”
On the train ride back to Chicago, Medic took out his notebook, added the day’s observations, read back to the beginning, and formulated a new hypothesis that he put to the test three weeks later. Two days before the start of the next mission, when they were all picking their rooms and unpacking their luggage, he made sure to let everyone know that he had his doves with him, and where and when he’d be setting them up for the duration of their stay and the various activities he had planned for them. Most everyone shrugged and went on to ask him what else he was doing, Scout rather theatrically disavowed the information, and Pyro ignored him to focus on something involving a blowtorch and another flamethrower design. He had been wearing his mask and as soon as Medic finished yelling to him about the doves, he yelled something right back that might have been about anything.
It might have been a positive acknowledgement of what Medic had hoped he’d understood, because halfway through his initial set-up of the cages a few hours later, Pyro came in and shut the door behind him. He didn’t sit down, his mask was nowhere in sight, and his eyes were unfocused but his very presence was a positive sign.
“Good afternoon,” Medic said as he filled a water dish. Pyro didn’t say anything. “Might you be kind enough to grab that feed bag over in the corner, please?” He ended up grabbing it himself, emptying the contents out into a giant plastic bucket from one of the myriad supply closets every base seemed to have. Pyro leaned against the wall and kept staring at the cages. Then he blinked, and Medic saw his pupils contract, suddenly focused on what was real and in front of him.
He nodded, and turned back to the cages.
The next day, Medic was setting up the infirmary for his flock’s routine check-up – something he could accomplish far more easily with the space and equipment provided in any base’s lab than his own Chicago townhouse – and had barely started when Pyro came in.
“Guten tag.”
“Hey there.”
Medic carefully wrapped his hand around Archimedes, holding him close to his chest as he took him over to the cadaver table – the largest flat surface in the room underneath bright, overhead lights he could easily wipe down if any of the doves happened to shit during their examinations. Pyro moved to stand alongside him while he worked, not too close to get in his way and close enough for Medic to see the clear interest in his eyes and the way he held himself.
After everything was finished and Archimedes received another clean bill of health, Medic let him go, and he flew up to perch on one of the overhead lights and stare down at them, first his right eye, then his left. Medic smiled up at him, and Pyro made a small, pleased sound.
“They are wonderful animals.”
“Yeah.”
Without looking, he asked, “Would you like to hold one?”
“What? Sure, yeah, I would. Hell yeah I would.”
“All right. Here.” He unlocked the cage door and reached in to pull out another dove. “Hold them against your chest, close, like this. Feet pointed out. Be gentle.” Pyro did as he was told, and let it go free to join Archimedes when its own examination was completed.
The next dove flapped up, then flew down to settle onto Medic’s wrist. Pyro reached out, pulled back, then reached out again and stopped short. “Can I?”
“If you’re gentle.” The dove hopped onto Pyro’s wrist, and cooed as he pet its chest with the back of a finger, very slowly.
“Scout doesn’t like birds,” Pyro murmured.
“Ja, I know. It’s quite a shame. They’re such lovely animals.”
“He says – he said he doesn’t like how they look. He said they’re always staring.”
“They can hardly do otherwise.”
“It’s too bad. They’re always so warm.”
“Yes, they are.”
When he’d begun this particular project, Heavy had asked him why, what reason did he have to devote his time and energy to this pursuit. It wasn’t to make himself happy, not as such, and did his best to explain it was to see what he might do to make Pyro keep company with the rest of the world. There was no way to fix Pyro, not with the tools he had to work with.
But there were methods he might follow, and techniques he might apply just the same. Testing, examining. Seeing what was best for his patient. Take what he had learned from his youth with how he knew to care for animals, and see where that got him.
After the dove flew off his wrist, Pyro looked away, lost to himself again.
“If we have time after the battle tomorrow, the cages will need cleaning,” he called out as Pyro left.
Pyro shut the door behind him, giving no sign of having heard, but the next evening he was present just the same. And try as he might, Medic couldn’t help but smile.