#Tf2 Spyder | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cinnamon-bunni · 1 year

Text

Once More, With Needles

Rating: T Word count: 4.3k Relationship: Gen (Medic & Scout) Warnings: Canon-typical gore (like, as much as you'd expect from Medic), body horror

Read it on Ao3!

Hey there! This fic was written for @a-scary-lack-of-common-sense's AU, their Job Switcheroo AU! I was heavily inspired by this AU and just fell in love with the characters, so of course I just had to write something <3 I decided to go with Medi-Scout and Engie-Med, as they were the first ones i fell in love with (but honestly, all of the characters are already so good <33) If you haven't, i definitely recommend checking out the AU, as well as OP's art in general! He makes some great stuff :)

I really hope you enjoy! <3

Medi-Scout watched the baseball game that was played on the small TV that sat precariously on his medical cart–Boston Red Sox versus Detroit Tigers–with vague interest. In all honesty, with the way his cap was pulled down far enough that it obscured half of his view, and how he slouched in the cheap office chair with his feet propped up on his medi-pack, he was on the verge of just falling asleep due to boredom. Other than the few times the Tigers did some outrageous play against the Sox, the game really couldn’t keep his attention all that well. He was bored out of his mind–hell, he wouldn’t even mind having someone to dissect; just open them up a little bit, poke around a bit, until his boredom was cured by something else.

Thankfully, his favorite patient (read: the one who always tested his patience) knocked on the open door before letting himself in. The clicking of his boots against the cement ground had warned Medi-Scout before his voice could say anything. He raised his cap upwards a bit to see, and sure enough, Engie-Med was there, creepy-ass smile and all, and was fast approaching him.

“Germs, good morning!” the man greeted. His hands were behind his back as he approached, until he planted himself next to the operating table. The overalls he wore were drenched in dried blood–which was hard to tell, because they were already a brown color, but the splashes of red of fresher blood made it easier to tell. They’d been like that for a few days now from what Medi-Scout had seen, and he wondered how long the newly named Engineer had been working on himself. His face, other than that huge fucking smile, portrayed unease. Ludovic always seemed to know how to creep someone the fuck out. “I hope I am not interrupting anything?”

Germs’ eyes darted back to the TV. “Sorry man, but as you can see, my time is being used up with some very important work. Have a full schedule over here, if it ain’t obvious.” The sarcasm didn’t drip off of his voice, it was fucking pouring off of it.

“Good!” Ludo replied, voice ever chipper, “Because I need a medical professional to look at something for me–a bit of a problem in my hand, you see.”

Germs sat up and stretched his hands overhead. “‘Kay then, just take a seat on the table, I’ll take a look at it.” Ludo complied, lifting himself onto it, while Germs stood up to stretch his legs. The newly named Medic always did enjoy seeing what monstrosity Engie-Med would create with his own body. The man, last Germs had seen, was cutting himself open to stuff in some titanium in his body, as well as drafting blueprints for more complicated contraptions he wanted inside of him. It was interesting, in kind of a weird, fucked-up morbid way, but a part of Germs kinda enjoyed to see the work Ludo would do–even if it did always had to be him to clean up the mess.

“Alright then Ludo, lay it on me: what sorta damage did you do this time?” he asked, walking over at a leisurely pace. “Did you put some more things in that arm of yours? Let me guess–mini saw blade? Another pair of scissors? How about a can’a Bonk for me?”

Ludo laughed and shook his head. “No, I am afraid to say it is a bit more…complicated than that. You know, blood problems, things like that.”

Medi-Scout frowned, and made a motion for the other to show him his hands. “What, as in problems with circulation or somethin’? What could’ve you done that woulda done tha–holy fuck what the fuck happened to your fucking hand?”

Ludo’s smile never faded, but more creases of worry appeared on his face. “Aheh. Well, you see, as I said: blood problems. After doing a bit of work on it last night it seems that the hand has lost blood! And a lot of it.”

A lot was an understatement. Ludo’s right hand, after what seemed to be poorly done jobs of setting and resetting the bone, was crooked from healing incorrectly. His fingernails were nothing but shortened and cracked from obvious miscare, and the cuticles were all bloody and ripped to shreds, open wounds that bled from mistreatment. There were pieces of metal that came out from underneath his skin on the back of his hand, only to dip and go back, without a doubt for the weird experimental shit that he had inside of his hand that went up all the way through his arm. All of that, however, was not the worst part. The entire right hand was shades of a darkened purple and gray. The fingers looked the worst, with a dark, almost-black color filling them instead of a normal, healthy color that a person should have. Holy fucking shit.

“What the fuck happened to the circulation? You do know you need that, right? That you need blood for your hand to work? Because it’s kinda essential for your hand to work, you moron.”

Ludo scoffed, but there was no anger in his voice, or anywhere on his face. “Of course I know I need it! That’s why I came to you!”

Germs stared at the hand for a few more seconds, then looked up to the other man. He wasn’t quite sure what emotion he was feeling, but his quiet “what the fuck” was the best explanation to what was going through his head. He gently grabbed the hand, the slow movement giving room for Ludo to say anything, before turning and examining the hand. From the wrist he could see large, horribly done stitches to keep the skin together–not from injuries or cuts that were healing, but because those were the spots the items would pop out of from his arm, and it was a way to keep it closed until he needed something like a knife to come out from the contraption that was inside of Ludo’s arm.

Germs pushed up the sleeve–he struggled a bit, the buttoned-up cuff that was too form fitting being hard to push up against the fucked up forearm, but Ludo used his other hand to properly grab onto the dress shirt sleeve and bring it all the way up to his shoulder, to where it bunched up against his red sweater vest.

The engineer’s arm wasn’t in any better condition than his hand. It was littered with long, fucked up stitches, in similar condition of his wrist. All of course were there for the same reasoning, to have a spot where the tools could come out of his arm, but jesus fuck was it hard to look at. The purple-gray tone to his arm certainly didn’t make anything better.

“Well, my guess–just a thought, by the way, just a random guess here–is that you have a bit too much shit in your arm. Just a bit.” Germs poked and prodded at the arm, feeling around the stitches. “And this stitching job is great, by the way. Better than mine, yeah?”

Ludo’s smile never faded as he crooked his head to the side. “You are being sarcastic.”

“Of course I’m being fuckin’ sarcastic! Dammit, it’s like everyone here is useless without me.” He sighed, and let go of the arm. “I don’t even know how you expect me t’fix this. Unless you already got some sorta plan-”

“I do, actually!” Germs watched with a blank stare as Ludo fished out folded up, bloodied blueprints from the front pocket of his waist apron, held down by a belt. He then held it out for the medic to grab, a friendly yet terrifying smile on his face. “I began drafting them this morning,” he said as Germs started to unfold the print, “and I finished it just a few minutes before coming here.”

The blueprints were hard to read. A mix of the folded creases, bloodied spots, and poor handwriting made Germs squint to read it. He soon realized that the majority of the writing–what he could decipher, anyway–was in German. The only English that was written went along with the circle that was around the design of the machinery and an arrow pointing at it, reading “put around + in upper arm!” which was finalized with a crudely drawn smiley face.

He looked back up at the engineer. The smile on his face was wide, and the creases of worry grew. “Well, I never said the design was well-made, but I assure you that the real thing will be better in quality. It will simply just direct more blood into my arm and hand and sort of–aheh, push its way into my hand. It will work, trust me.”

“It better,” he said, handing the blueprints back over. “I ain’t putting some faulty machinery in you because you think it might work.” But in all honesty, Germs wasn’t all that picky; he trusted Ludo, believe it or not, and if he said it was safe enough to use, then Medi-Scout wouldn’t have too much hesitancy with stuffing random shit into the man’s arm.

“So, how ‘bout this,” the medic continued. He pointed at the top of the upper arm. “I put your weird machine thingy here,” he trailed down the arm, “and all the weirdo blood-pumping-slash-forcing-blood-in lines inside. And then I can even fix up your shitty stitches for you! Free of charge.”

“Yes, how kind of you,” Ludo replied, “truly, I’d be useless without you.”

It was sarcasm, but Germs still smirked at the praise. “Yeah yeah, I’m amazing. Now go get that thingamajig already and let me see it.”

The pair worked well into the evening. Dinner had been missed, with Mikel knocking on the clinical doors and shouting that they could get leftovers in the kitchen once they were done. Ludovic yelled back in acknowledgement as he sat on the medical table, and Germs was busy opening up his arm. From his wrist all the way up to his upper arm, Medi-Scout cut him open, and Ludo only twitched a few times in pain.

“I stopped feeling things in that hand after the first few implants. Especially in the fingers,” the engineer explained with a smile. “Probably should have thought there was something wrong. Oh well!” Germs had no idea how the hell to put Ludo’s contraption into the arm. Germs kept looking for the right place to start, bringing it close to the shoulder, only to bring it back to him again. “It’s simple enough, Germs. I made it with you in mind, afterall.”

“Yeah okay, thanks chucklefuck. That makes everything easier for me.” Germs stared at the arm for a few seconds before giving a low grumble. The main module of it–a circular thing, with a clasp that let it open and close with ease, and a shit ton of wires connected to it–was supposed to be on the arm, right below the shoulder, where it could then do whatever the fuck it’s supposed to do with Ludo’s blood. The main problem Germs was finding were the wires; he was sure there was some sort of intricate way Ludo expected him to place the wires, and he didn’t want to fuck that up.

He quickly changed his mind about this in about three seconds though, as Ludo gave a quiet, “any day now, Germinoma.” So, Medi-Scout clasped it on the arm, and started shoving wires just about everywhere and anywhere he’d felt would need the blood. Which were a lot of places. Jesus fuck the arm hadn’t even bled for the whole ass five minutes it’d been open. Again: cool, but in a fucked up, morbid way.

Hooking up the blood circulation system and making sure it actually did its job was a bit of a pain in the ass. In the end the wires and other mechanical bits were just about everywhere–many pieces not so much inside of the arm anymore, but out in the open, with metal openings back into the arm and to hold them in place, where everyone could see. It was not a pretty sight, not at all; the stitches had disappeared thanks to the work of the medi-gun, but they’d only come back after a few uses of the arm. It was still a disgusting color, but they watched with bated breath, and both released it with mirroring sighs when Ludo’s arm went from a purple-gray color into a slightly less purple-gray.

Plus, his cuticles started to bleed. Which was only a good sign.

“Wonderful!” Ludo exclaimed, hopping off of the table. “Danke, my friend. You have helped me a great deal.”

“Yeah yeah, I know, I’m pretty great,” Germs said. He couldn’t help the proud smirk he had on his face–he supposed in the same way Engie-Med couldn’t help the crazed smile he always wore–and Medi-Scout, not for the first time since he picked up the job as the resident medic, felt a satisfied feeling deep in his chest. One that told him that this was right.

“Just come back over if it gives you any trouble. Or if you find some other way to fuck up your hand again.”

Ludo rolled his wrist in slow movements. “I might just take you up on that offer,” he said. He shot Germs one last creepy-as-fuck smile. “But for now, good night. Hopefully dinner was kept warm for us.”

Germs waved the engineer off before turning his attention to cleaning up the infirmary a bit; he could get dinner afterwards, once he was done shoving the medical utensils back into random drawers and kicking the medi-gun back into its place of being right in front of the TV. It didn’t take all that long really, and he was able to spend the rest of his night in blissful boredom. He was also able to spend the next day the same way. A quiet day-in was nice, if not a little slow. But he had the whole day to himself, and Germs spent that day without anyone busting the door down. It was pleasant, if not boring. But those days were few and far in-between, so he relished it as much as he could.

It was only the day after that did Ludo knock on his door again. As a formality of course, as he entered right away once he did.

“Oh. Back already?” Germs asked. “Two days–that must be a new record or somethin’.”

“Aheh. Well, what can I say? I’ve been busy.”

“Which is great for me, by the way. I loved so much how I had to jury-rig your blood system thing, that I am ecstatic that I have to do it again. Really brightens my day, you know.”

A forced laugh came from Ludo. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m afraid it is my other hand that will need attention.

A sigh left Germs. “Alright, what did you do now?”

“I’m glad you asked!” Engie-Med, with excitement clear in his face, walked with a pep in his step to reveal left hand. The once perfectly normal left hand was now not so perfect.

“Dude. What the fuck is that?”

“Needles!” he exclaimed. The hand, while still a natural and alive hue, was pale from blood deprivation. All of his fingers, sans index, had a metal piece that protruded at the end of his fingers–almost as a covering of sorts, or perhaps a replacement of the fingertips. Before Germs could ask him to clarify, thin and very sharp needles popped out of the metal pieces. Ludo did indeed gave himself needles in his fingertips. The fuck.

“They’re retractable,” Ludo explained, not retracting them. Which, yeah, was fine because Germs totally felt fine with the engineer moving the hand around and flexing the fingers with the pin-point needles inches away from his face and felt perfectly safe with this engineer and his dangerous body modifications. “And I am also planning on maybe having screwdrivers too!”

“Dude, your hand is gonna be fucked up, just like your other one,” Germs said, shoving down the urge to admit that that sounded like a pretty cool idea, despite all of the obvious health risks there was with shoving metal inside of a human body. He didn’t focus on it, because Ludo’s right hand, the one decked out in crazy shit, caught his attention once again. “Like, what the fuck happened to it over the two days?”

“Oh! Funny story actually.” Ludo gestured with his still-unretracted-needles hand to the blood circulation system. “You will be very happy to hear that it is working! My hand has been filled with a lot of blood.”

“Okay yeah cool, that doesn’t explain why your fingers are fucking dying.” Ludo frowned at that, and looked down at the hand, while Germs hadn’t stopped staring at it. The right hand, still crooked and now with new, fresh stitches made by the engineer, had a healthy-ish hue to it. It was certainly better than it had been before, but the fingers were still a dark gray color.

“Yes, I sort of ran into that problem a bit ago. The hand is getting plenty of blood and yet,” Ludo looked back up to the medic and shrugged. “Nothing. Still dying.”

“Which shouldn’t be happening,” Germs insisted. He looked back down at the hand–it really was still a healthy color. Yeah, there was a bit of an abnormal purple hue to it, and sure, the cuticles bled far too much and were probably filled with too much blood, but it was fine. What was not fine were the still darkened and dead fingers.

“And you didn’t even get to shove needles into those ones,” he commented.

“I know! Truly a shame.” A sigh left Ludo. “Perhaps one day I can add something else to them that can make them shine.”

“You know I think that’s probably just adding to the problem. But yeah no, go ahead and add more shit. Sure it’ll do wonders to that hand of yours.”

“But! That is not why I came to see you, my friend.” He raised his left hand up, and finally retracted the needles back, making it look at least vaguely normal. “It is this one that I need you to look at. I’m dealing with a bit of a, uh…aheh, jam, so to say. At least I think it is, anyway.”

Germs blinked. “Jam?”

A smile grew on the engineer’s face. “Well! As you can see, my forefinger was the only one I did not modify to have a needle point. That is because I decided to make it into a finger gun!” He even formed a little gun with his hand, giving a “pew pew!” for emphasis. His smile became one of worry. “And it is not firing, no matter how much I mess with it. It is harder to mess with it with only one hand, I’ve found. So why not find someone who can use both his hands and is already acquainted with my work? A second pair of eyes and opinions, so to say.”

A sigh left Germs. “Aright, yeah man. Just get on the table already.”

The workload this time, when compared to jury-rigging the blood circulation contraption, was quite small. Especially since Germs decided he’d look at the hand with dying fingers another day. Ludo could wait like twenty-four more hours, it’d be fine.

Cutting into the hand revealed a shit ton of titanium lining along his bones and muscles. Not as much compared to the other hand, mind you, but Germs was sure it was still an unhealthy amount. He messed around with the mechanisms for the needles for a short bit–Ludo watched silently as he did this, with the needles coming out and back and out and back as Germs stared with a slight fascination with it all.

The same could not be done with the index finger. It had metal wiring and such, just like all of the other fingers, and yet nothing happened when he poked or prodded at it. Germs frowned. He rolled in the stool that he sat in to get a different view of the arm; he pushed to get the squeaky wheels to move, until the hand in question was directly in front of him, with the fingers pointing toward him. He kept poking, even trying to move the different metal bits to see what’d happen. A piece–which Germs guessed was some sort of piston–was stuck, and didn’t move as the other counterparts of the piece had.

“Ich habe es dir gesagt, it is jammed." Germs glared at the man, who met him with a smile.

“Gee, thanks. Your insight really helps.” The man simply shrugged, and Medi-Scout focused back on his work. He tried more pressure, more force in moving the piece–he was met with nothing but a bit of fidgeting from the engineer. “The hell could’ve gotten stuck in there?” Ludo gave another shrug as an answer, and the medic sighed. “Cool, that’s just great.”

A lot of yanking and pulling on the piece made Germs the victor, only by brute strength on the thing. In the end he moved it a few centimeters backwards, but that was good enough. He was able to poke and prod in this new space, which worked just fine with him.

“Wait, I think I got it.” Germs narrowed his eyes as he focused on his work, with Ludo craning his neck forward as much as he could to look over.

“Dude, what the fuck.” Germs worked harder, hunched down closer to the arm to get a better look. “Is that a fucking bone shard?” In the small space was, indeed, a small bone shard. He was able to pull it out, thankfully; it was drenched in blood, but Germs knew his way around the human insides enough to easily recognize it. “What the fuck are you even doing to your body?”

“Science,” Ludo answered with ease. His smile never left his face–in fact, it grew with his answer. “And engineering. Sometimes the things in the body get in the way.”

“You do know that you still need your bones to, I don’t know, function, right?”

Ludo simply laughed as a response. What took place next only took seconds to happen, but both men watched with alert eyes. How, as Medi-Scout attempted to move the metal-piece-possibly-piston back into place, started to activate, now with nothing in its way. They watched as the piston moved further and further, and followed it by an ear-splitting bang. And they realized in horror that the finger gun did indeed work now, as blood started to soak the bottom half of Medi-Scout’s shirt.

“Fuck!” Ludo was quick to pull his hand back away from Germs. Germs, hand down and putting pressure against the wound, pushed with his feet to propel himself to a few feet away from the table; the wheels shrieked loudly from the abuse, but it fell on deaf ears. Arriving at the medi-pack, he kicked the backpack piece hard, and strained to get the gun portion to point it at himself.

“What the fuck, dude! You fucking shot me, asshole!”

That damned smile of his never left the engineer’s face, but at least it was one of worry and concern. “Aheh. At least we fixed the problem, ja?”

The medi-gun slowly closed up the wound, though it did not do anything about the pain, nor the bullet that was still inside of him. “Oh yeah, thank God we did that. Good thing nothing bad came out of it, yeah? I’m having a grand ol’ time, asshat, if you couldn’t tell.” Germs held the medi-gun against his lower abdominal region for a few more seconds before pulling it back. He felt around the area–no blood or open wounds, but the bullet was still inside of him, which caused only a bit of internal agitation. It would be fine, he was sure of it.

He used the gun to also close up Ludo’s arm, which somehow hadn’t bled out that badly despite Ludo’s movements with said open arm. Which was a shame, because a major loss of blood would’ve been just fine with Germs, just as a small form of payback for fucking shooting him.

Ludovic rolled his wrist and stretched his fingers as Germs put away the medi-gun. “Well then! With that figured out, I can finally move onto my next projects. What do you think about me adding a mini saw blade to my right pinkie?”

Germs blinked, and realized that Ludo was waiting for an answer. “You do know that I won’t help you with it, right?”

“Ja, ja, of course.” Germs hated that they both knew it was a lie. If Ludo needed help with anything, especially if it pertained to the human body, Germs would be there. It was his job as the medic after all. Besides, he found joy in the weird work.

“And I’m guessin’ there’s no way I can get you to be more careful so you don’t shoot me again?” Ludo’s smile grew, and Germs already knew the answer to his question.

In the same vein of Germs’ joy of being a Medic, he knew Ludo would never stop being an Engineer. Not from creating things and stuffing said things inside of himself, probably not until he ran out of room in his body for the modifications–even then, Germs had a feeling that he would reach out to the other mercs to continue his work. But the engineer reveled in his work, and took extreme joy in fucking up his body.

Both had found gratification in these roles that they played. So Germs wouldn’t ask Ludo to stop, never seriously–and besides, Ludo was arguably his favorite patient. Even with the visits that ended with Germs being shot, no he will never forgive the engineer for that, he still found joy in the work. The whole team did, they loved their newly discovered roles. So Engie-Med would always put machinery inside of him, and Medi-Scout would always be there to be apathetic and sarcastic towards the whole thing, despite loving any chance he had to show off his skills.

And he was perfectly content with that.

#highkey wanna write more fics for this au <33 #like something with spyder and monday and louise....#OR like about the team in general and them finding their names and the right classes for them? yeah #(it would depend on what op says tho--i dont wanna monopolize their au and act as if its my own or something)#but anyways i hope yall enjoy it <3 #tf2 #tf2 au #job switcheroo au #team fortress 2 #scout #tf2 scout #medic #tf2 medic

35 notes · View notes