burnburnburnburncleancleanCLEANCLEANSECLEANSECLEAN

“You sure are stubborn, Doc. Protectin yer little slaughtahhouse in this..position. Nice of you t’offah, but I’ve got my own Medic showin’ me how t’stitch, just need one mo’ piece, possibly from yer pile there. So…I’m willin’ to letcha run, right now. Othahwise, I’m just gonna kill ya an’ take it anyways while you respawn.” 

He edges closer. “What’s it gonna be, Doc? You gonna take yer chance an’ fight? Or-“

And that’s when the smash of glass from the window startles the Scout. He immediately turns towards the source, knife at the ready. “The hell was that?!?” Heinrich certainly hadn’t thrown anything, was it that girl from before? He hears an object roll, the smell of gasoline soon assaults his nose. The clone freezes; he spent enough time with the Pyros to know what was to come. Now he’s just pissed, trying to work as fast as possible to salvage the leather. 

“Fuck. Who the fuck-okay just...just give me the goddamn body pahts you sonovabitch!” 

José hears the screams from inside, at which he tilts his head bemusedly; he doesn't understand, he hasn't lit up the fire to clean the filthy men inside yet. Liam--this Liam, not the one that ran around BLU like he belonged there--was a filthy mess, all stitches and knives and terrifying attitudes, and José tended to stay away from him, usually. But now that he was here...Well, he could clean him up, along with the Medic, and the shed of corpses. Yes. Yes, he could do that, yes yes yes...

Another tin container of gasoline flies into the shed with the shatter of another window, and the grimy, wild-looking Pyro in his full and fully dirty uniform kicks the door to step inside with a gas canister and a box of matches.

"Uhv'nn'nh," he nods in greeting, before unceremoniously tipping his canister with a kick. "Huh 'rrh yuh duuhuhnnh tuhn'nnht." 

He just wants a good look at his new friends before he cleans them, that's all, and he might as well get to know them a little before he lights his matches. 

The medic told himself that a generator or a heating system must have friend. He wasn’t being haunted. There couldn’t be ghosts of men who didn’t actually die.

But he fumbled with his knife, slicing into his hand when he saw something ghastly flicker outside the fogged and dirty window. Was there actually something out there? 

He took a moment to wrap a scrap of cloth around his palm, and to get his breathing back in order as his wife had taught him. It was too close to a holy day for there to be evil lurking.

But that’s not why he came here for! José wouldn’t have any of his own meager insecurities, there was still cleansing work to be done! He reached to one of his burdens at his side, and…

…

For a moment there was no sound whatsoever anymore, and the shed’s windows didn’t show any more grisly apparitions peering at Heinrich through the foggy glass. However, there was no mistaking the suddenly loud smash of shattering glass as a tin canister was suddenly flung through the window  farthest to the old Medic’s position. As it hit the floor the can spilled its contents all over the wooden floor, suddenly filling the shed with the smell of gasoline.

After dark was the best time to drag them to his shed to start skinning them, but it was still plenty chilly out and a pain in the ass to be out doing work at this hour. Thank goodness for fur-lined jackets and batteries.

The medic finds one of the better bodies he’s set aside, a torso with half an arm and both legs still intact. No head. He could probably get a few decent sized pieces of leather out of it.

Either way, the cracking noises are slowly coming closer to Heinrich's shed, and on more than one occasion a dirty hazmat suit or the lens of a gas mask glinted just outside his window, just for a moment, to witness the filthy Medic butchering a filthy corpse in a filthy shed. Then it was gone, if only for a moment.