Hank made it here, we're all sure that you will; but I don't think Hank done it this way

[spah]

Any time music blared out the garage late at night, it was a sure sign that Dell was there. Either working on something before the next day's fight or late-night inspired, there was usually something getting made. Tonight, it was a bit of both, and he sure as hell didn't want to be disturbed.

Old blueprints and photographs scattered the wall in front of his workbench. The blueprints were frayed at the edges, drawn on old paper with a different hand than Dell's. They seemed to detail some kind of artificial hand. The photographs are all of one extremely buff man who Dell vaguely resembled, if Dell was at least four times beefier, taller, and had Texas-shaped chesthair. But I mean, he might. You don't know.

Apparently, he built the hand. It's sitting shiny-and-new on his workbench, next to a bottle of Tennessee whiskey and a bonesaw he quietly jacked from the operation room. The bottle was down to the last fourth, and it's pretty evident who drank it by the way the engineer's hand wavered next to the saw, feeling and groping until he finally got a grip on the handle.

It hovers over his arm. The merc tries to force himself steady. He tried every precaution he could think of that didn't require other people. He had a tourniquet. He lined where to cut with marker. He had a dispenser right next to him (turned off for now, otherwise it would just heal what he was about to do). The only downside was, alcohol was a blood thinner.

Oops.

Oh well. It's not like he had any moral quandaries about this. It was great idea, even sober. Saw your own hand off, give yourself a cool-as-hell robot hand, start some kind of weird family tradition. All good ideas. He just knew it was going to hurt.

But hey, that's what he was blaring Willie Nelson for.

He's grateful for it when the first cut goes in deeper than he expected.

Comments

[malpractitioner]

Medic is, generally speaking, a very meticulous man. His infirmary, while not always the most sterile place considering live birds frequently inhabit it, is usually kept in perfect order. Everything has its place. Every tool, pill, and spare organ has a designated spot where it can be immediately accessed without any guesswork.

This has less to do with any latent anal retentiveness on Ludwig's part, and more to do with plain old practicality. Fumbling around looking for a misplaced tool could cost a patient their life, and while Ludwig didn't always have a personal investment in his patients' well-being, he prided himself on the fact that no one had ever died on his table.

So, naturally, Ludwig notices straight away when one of his bone saws turns up missing.

He knows for a fact that it was not misplaced because he always returns his tools to their proper places out of reinforced habit, so he comes to the immediate conclusion that someone must have borrowed it. He can think of several reasons why someone might have taken the saw, none of them good, and decides he had best go looking for it rather than wait for it to turn back up. Knowing his teammates, someone's probably using it to dismember a corpse, or maybe just cut a sandvich.

He asks around, clears a few names off his list, and eventually his search leads him to Engie's door. He can hear the music blaring before he even sets foot in the garage, a sure sign that his hard-hatted friend is hard at work one one of his many projects. For a moment Medic considers leaving him be, not wanting to interrupt him in the middle of whatever it is he's doing - but only for a moment. Then, just like that, he swallows down his hesitation and invites himself into the Engineer's workshop, announcing his arrival with a chipper "Guten Abend."

He makes it about two steps into the room before coming to a dead halt, his hand left hanging in the air mid-wave as he stands and stares and wonders what the fuck he just walked in on.

He brings a fist to his mouth, awkwardly clears his throat, and carefully diverts his eyes as though he caught the other man in a different sort of private moment entirely.

"---Oh. I see you're busy."

Hacking a limb off. You know, like you do.

[spah]

The first cut is already bad. The second goes even deeper when German hits Engie's ears and surprises him. The saw's steel teeth bite easily through the fleshy parts of him, slicing skin and muscle. He half-wonders as he shouts through grinding teeth how he didn't expect this, when he took the saw for this exact reason.

Oh right, he's smashed.

Speaking of alcohol, blood is already freely pouring out of him, gathering on the steel bench and blending in with the rust. Too bad Dell had big arms. Not Radigan Conagher-sized, but there's still plenty to cut before he hits bone. That's going to be a task in itself. He calculated this all out already. At the same time? FUCK.

"Get..."

Dell turns his head molasses-slow toward Ludwig. Where the goggles hid his eyes, the way the rest of his face clenched says plenty. He moves the saw forward.

"--OUT."

He moves the saw backward.

This isn't helping the caught-in-the-act metaphor any better, honestly - especially when the offending part keeps doing it.

[malpractitioner]

There are not many people who, upon catching someone in the act dismembering themselves, can calmly hold a conversation with said person. Medic is proud to be one of the scarce few.

"Aheh. No." No, he most certainly will not get out. If anything, he's going to walk even closer to get a better look at the mess Engineer is making of his arm.

He tilts his head a bit, trying to find a better angle from which to see around Engie as he approaches at a pace that is far too lackadaisical for a medical professional seeing something they really ought to be putting a stop to.

"I was not aware one of your many doctorates was in medicine, mein freund."

[spah]

Engineer growls out a cross between a groan and a snarl. He can't decide what it is. Medic needed to go, but he can't necessarily stop to kick the man out either. Nothing was stopping him from DOING that, technically, but in his whiskey-fueled haze, he's already committed.

He opts to use the annoyance to fuel another back-and-forth. Yep. Still sucks.

"Yeah, well..."

He forces himself to look up at the wall, eyes darting between the old blueprints and the disturbingly jacked old man with the same hand. Good enough motivation. Better motivation than Medic. He saws some more.

"I'm... FULL OF... surprises."

On the plus side, blood is not an uncommon occurrence in their garage.

[malpractitioner]

Medic hums, as though considering that very compelling argument, before sliding right on next to Engie's workbench without so much as a how-do-you-do. He has is arms folded neatly behind his back, his expression calm and composed despite the plethora of reasons why it shouldn't be.

He watches Engineer work with a clinical eye, as though he were in his residency again, watching a senior doctor preform in an operating theater.

He doesn't seem impressed, but he's not concerned either, which is a good sign. It means Engie isn't fucking up so badly that he feels the need to intervene.

"And alcohol." He says lightly, nodding towards the nearly-empty bottle to their right.

"You realize there is a reason for my policy against drinking during surgery, Ja?"

He's just gonna arch a brow, see what Engineer has to say for himself. He really should be intervening some way, either to help or to hinder, but for the moment he stays his hand. He's going to stand back and see where this goes - partly out of curiosity, partly to allow Engie the opportunity to scar himself so terribly by the experience that he never tries this shit again.

[spah]

"Yep."

No argument there. He's definitely full of alcohol.

Dell's grateful that Ludwig doesn't intervene, at least. He doubts he would stop him, but he already decided that nobody was going to do this but him. Anyone else wouldn't get it right, and Dell Conagher prided himself on personal touch. Just because he was smart didn't mean he wasn't stubborn.

He glances at the bottle, then Medic. Still sawing. Still slicing through muscle. Christ, he had to hit his ulna eventually. He's almost mad at his own bulk. He's also vaguely reminded of a slaughterhouse he went to when he was a boy, but the metaphor ends there when he remembers he's doing this to himself.

Anyway, drinking. Right. Engineer chuckles. It goes up, down, gutteral to high pitched, ocassionally catching in his throat, and ends in a whine. Through gritted teeth, he sounds more than a little insane. In between breaths, he flashes a toothy, lopsided smile.

"Yeah, well... believe it or NOT, doc... a little COURAGE goes a hell of a long WAY."

The saw stops. He takes a second to catch his breath.

"I decided this sober..." He swallows. "...a long while ago... if you were wonderin'."

[malpractitioner]

To anyone else, that laugh might have been unnerving. The uneven pitch, rocky cadence, and overall unhinged sound of it would have made most people take an involuntary step backwards.

To Medic, it just sounds like home.

"I was, actually." He says with a short nod and the slightest of smiles.

"I was also wondering why you did not wait until your arm necrotized from the lack of circulation before you began cutting into it."

It might seem like a catty thing to say, a rhetorical question meant as a jab, but Ludwig actually genuinely wants to know the answer. Engineer may not be a doctor, but he's still a genius. Medic doesn't doubt that he knows what he's doing, at least in theory. Surely he must have already taken that very suggestion into consideration, only to decide against it for whatever reason.

If Ludwig had to guess, he'd say it probably comes down to a matter of efficiency - why wait for hours for a limb to be starved of oxygen when you can get the whole thing done and over with in half the time? That, or perhaps this is all some sort of terrible exercise in machismo - a misguided attempt to prove his durability to himself, or his forebears, if the pictures on the wall are any indication.

whatever this is TF2 I can make up anything I want about the human body

[spah]

Oh yeah, no. Engineer's worked with Medic long enough to know when he's not really asking a question. It's easy enough to ignore, normally, but right now it's just one more irritation on top of the main one. Which, again, he's doing to himself.

He knows he'll lose his nerve if he stops for too long. The just-in-case dispenser is still right next to him. Several healing canisters lay next to the side module, just in case. Regardless, he takes a moment to bring his hand up (leaving the saw in, yikes) and taps at two wires sticking out the end of the Gunslinger on the table.

"See that? That's... that's goin' in. It's the... the, uh..." A pause. His finger taps the table rapidly now, eyes clenched shut, searching for the right words through a haze of whiskey and blood loss because oh my god holy crap he can't think straight right now. "Christ almighty--nerve endings! Nerve endings. That's it."

Oh christ. Okay. Breathe again. Breathe like you're going into labor. Arm labor, for your robot hand baby.

"Ain't... gonna work... if my arm's dead."

Medic's right. He did think about it. But Medic's right about everything else too: it's faster, and it's machismo. He gets it over with, and he proves something. You know Americans, man. They need something to prove.

"So... doc, you got... anythin' other questions?"

Because honestly he still looks pretty insane and while that might not be that intimidating to Medic BOY would he kick you out if he could.

Medic does that all the time and it seems to work for him just fine

[malpractitioner]

Ah, that explains it. Medic inclines his head, regarding the metal contraption with keen interest and a critical eye. If someone were to look close enough they could probably see the gears turning in his head as he puzzles out the mechanics of it, mapping out in his mind how the flesh might meld with the metal.

It's not his particular area of expertise, robotics. Still, if that arm is anything like the batteries he installed in everyone's hearts, then it should take just fine.

"Just one."

He reaches out to place a hand on Dell's shoulder, partly as a show of camaraderie and support, partly because the man is sweating bullets and looks like he could use a little grounding.

"Would you like help?"

see

[spah]

See, now Engineer's going to have two artificial things in his body.

Still sweating bullets, Engineer's expression falls, and he looks just a little more sane. Thanks, Medic. You somehow did it. He looks down. The merc didn't even hit bone yet, and he looks like a murder victim on a pig farm. He said he didn't want anyone else handling this, but...

The dispenser was getting more and more tempting, and that's bad. He looks back at Medic.

"Yeah. Okay."

It helped to know that this could piss off their employer, who literally dug up his grandfather's corpse. But this was less of a revenge thing, and more the fact that Dell Conagher was a loose damn canon. God help that you ever put blueprints in his hands.

[malpractitioner]

Good call, Dell. That was the answer he wanted to hear.

Medic smiles, gives Engie's shoulder a little pat that would probably be comforting if it was coming from damn near anyone BUT Medic. As it stands, the gesture comes across as...not condescending, exactly, but it wouldn't look out of place if used on a particularly adorable puppy that just pissed on the carpet. It's okay, buddy. You tried.

"Wunderbar."

Rather than take up the saw himself and pick up where Dell left off, Medic instead reaches into his coat pocket and retrieves a disposable scalpel - no Medic worth his salt leaves home without one. Or five. Or seven.

The point is, he's perfectly prepared for just such an occasion - and in turn, that means Dell is prepared. Or he will be, once medic talks him through it.

"Here. You've seen this used often enough to know how to properly hold it, Ja?"

He holds the scalpel out towards Engie, offering him the handle.

"Excise the surrounding tissue first, then cut the bone."

Oh, did Engie think he was going to take over the whole operation when he offered to help? Hahaha, no, no. Like any good teacher, he's not going to do this for him, he's going to show him how to do it himself.

[spah]

Engineer should have expected it, honestly. He knows Medic. He makes a face anyway - somewhere a cross between incredulity and desperation.

"Are you shittin' me, doc?"

He gestures to his arm - still with the bonesaw sitting in it, for the record.

"That's like... takin' a spoon to a wall! Or cleanin' a toilet with a toothbrush!"

Or all kinds of metaphors! Shawshank Redemption doesn't even exist yet!!!!!!!!! Take note that, for all his bitching, Engineer takes the scalpel anyway. So, you know. Still committed.

[malpractitioner]

Medic just raises his brows, waiting patiently for Engineer's initial incredulity to fade. He tries not to smile, but he just can't help himself. The corner of his mouth twitches upward slightly, his amusement evident. He had expected that exact reaction, or at least something very similar, but that doesn't stop it from tickling his funny bone.

Ha, surgery puns.

"I assure you I am quite serious."

He nods again towards the scalpel, quietly insistent.

"This blade is particularly well suited for dissection and amputation. Use the fingertip grip and make quick, shallow strokes. If you press too firmly the blade could snag, which is precisely why you've had such trouble with the bone saw."

He chuckles a little because it's just such a cute, rookie mistake. It's endearing, really.

"It is not so much the size of the tool, but what you can do with it."

Aaaand they're back to dick parallels.

[spah]

Engineer groans again, this time just exasperated. Probably at the dick jokes. He hates himself.

"Hell."

No use stalling this any longer. Dell couldn't let himself lose his nerve. He finally looks back to his arm, takes a breath, and takes out the saw. He then grips the scalpel, forced himself to focus on Medic's advice, and goes back to cutting.

Yep, still a bitch.

He grits his teeth again. It's definitely going easier this time, if anything, so hey. Thanks Medic. Unfortunately, he also has to make himself look at what he's doing this time, which is gross. Oh well.

He's going to be pissed when the aliens get here and he finds out lasers were an option

"Jesus."

[malpractitioner]

Hmm. Not bad. Not necessarily good, but better than he had been expecting from a total novice. Medic makes sure to nod every now and again to encourage Engineer to keep going, to reassure him that he's actually doing this right so he doesn't lose his nerve and momentum.

Starting is hard enough. To keep going after you've stalled is a different challenge altogether.

"You're doing well. Keep going. Not much longer till you hit bone."

It's said blithely enough, though whether that's because he's proud of Engineer's resolve or just likes observing gory medical procedures is anyone's guess.

"You know," He begins, because apparently he considers the middle of an operation to be the perfect opportunity for story time, "The first time is always the hardest."

He gestures to Engineer's exercise in self-mutilation, as though that weren't obvious.

"Do it often enough, and after a point, it will hardly even bother you anymore."

It's said with the kind of chipper confidence of a man who speaks from experience, which...probably isn't all that surprising, but still. Yikes.

[spah]

Thanks, Ludwig. He's a future doctor yet. Dell almost doesn't mind the attempt at conversation. It'd actually make a good distraction from the pain, if they were talking about literally anything else.

Don't bite, don't bite, don't bite, don't--

He yelps through his teeth when his fingers twitch and push down just a little too hard. You know what? Nevermind. Fuck it. Story's good. Let's talk about self-mutilation. Let's talk about any other forms of self-mutilation but his.

"You talking'... about... the hearts?"

Uber hearts. Heart batteries. Uber devices. Whatever they're called. It's still pretty hard to forget you have a battery sticking out of a vital organ. It wasn't hard to guess that Medic had done it to himself, too.

Whatever else Ludwig's done to himself, Dell has no idea. He just figures they can start with that. Then talk about literally anything else please god please god please god please.

[malpractitioner]

Ludwig chuckles, which is never a good sign, and shakes his head. Oh, Dell. You poor innocent bastard.

"Oh, no, no. No, with the Medi Gun, I would hardly consider that a fair example."

He gestures towards Dell's arm, then pantomimes the proper cutting motion to use with a fingertip grip so that he won't accidentally dig in too deeply a second time.

"The trick is to focus your attention on the blade - how it feels in your hand, not your skin. Concentrate on the weight of it, on how smoothly it glides though the flesh, the muscle, the tendons. Once you become engrossed with what you are doing, what is being done to you almost becomes an afterthought."

Almost being the keyword here.

[spah]

Almost. Dell forces his alcohol-addled mind to pay attention to Ludwig again, and he tries a second time. Better now. It's hard not to make a slip-up, though. You only have so many limbs you can amputate off yourself at a given time.

"Yeah, well, doc... almost's a strong word, there. I worked roughneck jobs on oil fields for ten years. It's hard... not to, uh..."

Breathe. Breathing. He's breathing.

"... feel it, seein' some poor bastard bust an arm... or blow off a leg."

That's a roundabout way of saying he's used to carnage. He saw it for a long time before he ever worked here. Now, just gets to see it more. Speaking of carnage, there's a decent pool of blood around his arm now. It's threatening to spill over the table and onto his clothes, but it's hard to care.

If anything, the merc was quieting down... a little. It's still not a rollercoaster. He still grunts and groans through it, but now he made himself breathe and focus just as much. Believe it or not, he's actually paying attention to Medic's advice.

"So you... had fun with your own experiments, then."

That's a guess, but it's the only thing Engineer thinks to ask. There's a simpler way to ask that (hey, what kind of self-mutilations did you do on yourself), but the merc's mind's just barely occupied on conversation.

[malpractitioner]

Well, would you look at that. Dell really does pick things up quickly, doesn't he? Medic would almost be impressed, if he didn't already expect as much from a man with more phds than he has fingers.

"Aheh. I would not call them experiments, really."

Experiment implies he wasn't already certain of what the end result would be when all was said and done.

"Practice is a better word, a learning experience you might say. A few instances were even necessary!"

He laughs, because apparently having no option but to operate on yourself stops being horrific and starts being hilarious if you do it often enough, and gestures to his upper arm, just above his elbow.

"For example, here - Holstein–Lewis fracture. The displacement of the bone resulted in the entrapment of the radial nerve. If not alleviated quickly, the ensuing nerve damage would have been crippling. I was young and the time and did not wish to see my promising medical career end before it began, so I took matters into my own hands."

He lifts the affected arm in demonstration, and very proudly flexes his fingers to show their full range of movement, free of functional deficit.

"Well, hand. I only had the one at the time."

[spah]

Between that and a natural curiosity, it wasn't hard for him to get those PhDs either.

Engineer can only spare a glance in Medic's direction, but it lingers for longer than usual. He's quiet for a moment - about as quiet as he can be.

"You got guts, doc. I'll give ya that."

Given what Medic just told him, the Engineer's response is almost a mood-killer. Trust him, though. That's a compliment.

Finally, bone. Dell grunts again, having felt the scalpel hit his radius before he saw the flash of bloody white. Speaking of guts, the merc doesn't hesitate this time when he takes the saw.

He knew he already hit two arteries from what he remembered from anatomy books he referenced as he planned. There's also, like, a lot of blood, whiskey notwithstanding. Either way, this was the hard part, and he knew he had to get it done fast.

[malpractitioner]

Huh. Would you look at that.

It's not often the mercs pay each other compliments that aren't backhanded or padded with so much snark that it's damn near impossible to gauge their sincerity. It's so unusual that for a moment Medic can only stand there and blink owlishly, wondering if Engineer has somehow ascended to a higher level of sarcasm that is indistinguishable from honesty.

Then, after a beat, he smiles and shakes his head. Ah, Dell. He sure chose a strange time to be companionable.

"Coming from the man sawing off his own arm, that's high praise."

Also, yeah. That really is like, a ton of blood. Even with the tourniquet, the circulation can only be impeded so much. It's too bad Engie didn't think to borrow a few hemostats while he was getting the saw. Oh well, lesson learned. Maybe next time.

"You'll want to put more pressure going forward than pulling back, by the way."

He nods to the saw, which Engie is holding correctly. Not that there are many wrong ways to hold a saw, but still. The man has good form.

[spah]

"Heh... thank my grandfather for that idea."

He gestures as much as he can to the photos on the wall before he gets to work.

Yowza. Yep. Oh boy. That's definitely bone. He feels it bite in as he starts to work it through. Per Medic's advice, pressure forward, pull it back. Pressure forward. Pull it back. Hey, he's right. This is about 5% less excrutiating when you find a rhythm.

"He... made it first. I just improved... on it."

Conversation bumps it to 6%.

"Don't ask... about the chest hair."

[malpractitioner]

Medic isn't as tech-savvy as Engineer - then again who is - but he has enough rudimentary knowledge of mechanics to understand what he's looking at, even if he could never think it up himself. After all, he invented the medigun, but that was less a revolution in engineering and more a resourceful use of an old fire-hose.

"Is it a family-tradition, then?"

The amputating your own arm thing, not the chest hair. He's seen all his teammates topless before so he already knows the answer to that question.

"A bit late to be coming-of-age, aren't you?"

[spah]

"Heheh."

Laughing still makes him sound pretty crazy, he realizes. That's fine. He ain't Medic.

"Not really. I only found out he... did any of this... 'bout a week ago. He didn't even... look like that, most his life."

'That' meaning 'disturbingly beefy.' Engie had both hands occupied (and he's losing feeling out of one), so he can't gesture. Dell still hasn't yet figured out what exactly happened to his grandfather, but he's been slowly piecing it together through his notes and drafts.

"You know I'm... third generation... to all this? I just... found that out."

[malpractitioner]

Medic tuts, disappointed that Enginner's grandfather wasn't just naturally a mountain of a man the likes of Saxon Hale himself. It would have been interesting, speculating on why the former didn't inherit the latter's mountainous stature. If only it was a natural condition, then he might have been able to do a little experimenting with Engie's dna to unlock his genetic potential.

Oh well. He'll just have to find some other, more complicated way to turn everyone on the team into Olympic gods.

"--What?"

Sorry Engie, he must have been too busy daydreaming about beefcake to hear you correctly.

"How is that possible?"

Who the hell can keep a secret like that from their family two generations running???