Author's notes: And here's the sixth commissioned story for my Fanfiction Fundraiser! Thank you to sleepersamizdat, who requested for a story of my TF2 OTP of OTPs, Heavy/Medic! Yep, it was inevitable that it turned into a monster of a story, hahaha. There's hurt/comfort, voice kink and is oh-so-very NSFW.

The soundtrack I listened to while writing this is from the Pride & Prejudice OST, Your Hands Are Cold. A gorgeous, very romantic piece.

Medic's world goes inky-black in an explosion of pain. He crumples to the ground with a raucous shout, the air in his lungs punched out of his limp body, his shattered Medi-pack a crushing weight upon him. A torrent of red rages through his ears, down his cheeks. Jagged gravel engraves its name into the skin of his face.

His own name is roared across the heavens. A god is calling for him, but he can't answer. He gasps for precious breath around the incandescent ball of agony in his head. He grapples with it, yanks at his hair. His medical training has receded into the darkness, far from his grasp, from what's left of his mind. He can't think. He can only feel fear-fright-horror, feel something warm and viscous spread and smear all over his face.

"DOKTOR!"

His god's bellow is deafening to his ringing ears. He tries to keep his hands pressed around his head. His arms are shaking, weakening. He's cold. He hears the harmonious, arresting warble of a Calandra Lark. He's sprawled on the ground and yet, he wanders amidst the ice-painted Windbuchen Beeches of the Black Forest and dips his feet into the cool waters of the Danube. The waters remind him of his summer holiday last year with his parents, when Vatti finally succeeded in taking time off work and Mutti was finally smiling again, when he leapt into the coolness and floated in it and nothing else could touch him.

He hears his name being called once more, from afar. It's Vatti. Vatti wants to go home now. They have to reach home before nightfall so Mutti can prepare and make dinner.

Ich bin hier, Vatti. Ich bin hier.

He doesn't want to leave, not yet, but Vatti and Mutti are still smiling and he doesn't want them to stop.

"Holy fuckin' dooley, wot happened t' his eyes?"

"Cover me, Sniper! Must take Doktor back to base!"

He wants to go back into the waters. He wants to take this resonant-voiced god back into the waters with him, to take his breath away and escape the fury of the mob and the pitchforks and the fire, the fire in his head.

"You vill be safe soon."

He wants this resonant-voiced, giant god to carry him forever, to read the sagas etched on his flesh and veins.

"I promise."

He wants –

He wants a sip of water. The temperature of this New Mexico desert is at least thirty-eight degrees Celsius today, and outside of the train, away from its reviving air-conditioning system, he's baking in his dress shirt, waistcoat and outer coat. The flapping of Archimedes' wings against his face does nothing to dispel the heat from it.

"Hahaha, that is good idea, Engineer! Maybe you can look at Sasha later and tell me more, da?"

The heat in his face increases as he listens to the booming laughter rolling down the railway platform to his ears like distant thunder. The sound washes over him like the cresting wave of a cerulean ocean under a midday sun. It consumes him whole. He whirls in it. He is disoriented, adrift in serene blue.

Archimedes flies away from his shoulder, out of sight.

A shadow falls over him, in the shape of an enormous man with enormous hands. The serene blue in which he drifts is the infinite blue of the man's vivid eyes.

"You are the Medic," the man says, offering his gloved right hand. "I am Heavy Weapons Guy. Just call me Heavy, is enough."

He's already seen this man's face in the team profile folders that were mailed to him prior to his journey here. Read the concise biography, the basic statistics. Stared at the color portrait attached, at striking, masculine facial features set upon a shaven head and neck seemingly hewn from ageless mountain rock. But none of that has prepared him for this man's voice. For its intensity, its presence.

He has yet to utter a word in return, and he is already lost.

He doesn't remember shaking Heavy's hand. He doesn't remember his reply, or what the other team members on the platform do or say to him, if any of them has deigned to converse with him again. What he does remember is Heavy speaking to him about their one year contract with RED, about their first meal, their first battle as a team, about his beloved mother and seven sisters living safely and happily in the Dzhugdzhur Mountains of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia. Heavy's voice makes his nervous system hum. It makes currents of electricity shoot along his spine, shocking him down to his toes in military boots, up to his brain and hushing its dark chaos with veneration. It feels like flames whispering over his skin, hot enough that he should be afraid of being incinerated to ashes.

But then, his fellow villagers of Rottenburg did try so hard to fry him at the stake, and all they burned away was his dread of death.

He should thank them for that some time. Preferably by switching many more of their hearts with mega-baboon hearts. Vatti would have enjoyed that too, if Vatti had survived the heart attack that got him just before the advent of the second world war. Mutti had followed him shortly, noiselessly in her sleep.

He doesn't tell Heavy any of this. He lets Heavy speak, lets his ears attune to the gravelly rumble as Heavy growls commands on the battlefield. He lets his brain memorize its timbre as Heavy recounts amusing anecdotes about his sisters over their nightly games of chess. Let his hands stroke the length of his aching cock in the dimness of his room after those games, burying his face in the pillow to stifle his cry as he imagines Heavy rasping into his ear, as he comes all over himself.

He lets Heavy speak. He listens.

And the heat within him grows, and grows.

His healing formula has failed him. After four attempts at restoring his vision with the Quick-Fix, Medic no longer has doubt about that.

"Doktor, give me your hand. I show you vhere is food and drink."

The darkness doesn't frighten him.

"Here is sandvich. Here is coffee, vith milk as you like."

It doesn't frighten him, not when he's here in the refuge of his room in the Infirmary, in his bed. Not when Heavy is clasping his hand so kindly like this, guiding it to what feels like a salami sandwich with an olive on top and a hot mug of coffee on a tray. His fingers skate through wisps of steam. His pulse jumps at the squeeze Heavy gives his hand.

"Zhank you, Heavy."

His hand tingles long after Heavy has released it.

They have dinner in easy silence. He hears the subtle scrape of a utensil upon a smooth, ceramic surface. He hears Heavy biting and chewing something juicy. Grilled steak, most likely, if his sense of smell isn't deceiving him also. He takes a bite of his sandwich. Every sweet and salty flavor that permeates his tongue makes him think of Heavy, of Heavy's large hands as they sliced the salami, wheat bread and lettuce, of Heavy's eyes focused on the task. Thinking of Heavy touching the food he's putting into his mouth right now makes him think of other even more delicious, meatier things Heavy could put in his mouth.

Never has he been so grateful for the tray and blanket over his lap.

"Ve vill find a vay," Heavy says later, after they've finished their meals. "You vill see again."

Heavy's taken away the tray. Heavy is laying one hand on his knee, a gesture of solace. His skin there smolders even with the blanket over it.

"It has been three days," he replies, when he can breathe once more. "Zhe longer I am blind, zhe smaller zhe chances are of my sight returning."

He reclines back on plump pillows. He blinks. The darkness remains. He hears Heavy sigh, a sound as weighty as the giant, stalwart man. He turns his head in the direction of the sigh. He wishes he could see Heavy sitting there on the side of his bed so he can commit the image to memory. He can feel the sturdy wall of Heavy's hip against his shin. He can smell Heavy, smell the fresh soap Heavy uses and something metallic and something gratifying, like chilled wine coursing down a parched throat. He bites his lower lip.

Heavy moves his hand away.

"If I am not needed anymore, I vill go."

This is what Heavy says to him every night since he was ambushed and injured by the enemy Pyro during their last battle with BLU. Every night, he's bidden Heavy good night and Heavy will do the same and then leave, shutting the door behind him with a click.

Tonight, he wants a different outcome.

"Stay."

He feels Heavy go still, like a great rock balanced on a precipice above a howling sea. He reaches out and touches the soft hair and warm skin of Heavy's forearm. He hears the sharp intake of Heavy's breath.

"Read to me. I often read before I sleep und … vell."

He flaps his other hand at his eyes and arches his lips in what he hopes is an amused smirk. It feels like eternity before Heavy murmurs, "Vhat book do you vant me to read?"

Heavy has yet to shift his arm away.

"Any book vill do. But –"

He falters, his request drying up in sudden apprehension. He's yearned to ask this of Heavy ever since they met, ever since he overheard Heavy chatting with his mother and sisters on the communal telephone near the entrance of the base's rec room.

"But vhat, Doktor?"

Heavy's voice is gentle. So gentle, like the low purr of a slumbering lion. It soothes him. It gives him courage.

"I vant to hear it in Russian, bitte."

In your voice. Only yours.

This, Medic keeps close to his perilous heart.

Another eternity passes. He senses Heavy's gaze upon his face, studying it as if it is an ancient, priceless tome. He is now that rock balanced on that precipice, his fate hinging on what Heavy does next. He blinks again. Licks dry lips.

Heavy's arm slides from his hand. He hears Heavy stand up and walk away from the bed. He freezes when he hears the door open and Heavy exit the room, but relaxes when Heavy returns soon after with familiar, firm treads. Ah, Heavy must have gone to his own room next door to retrieve a Russian book. Probably one of those bulky literary novels he's caught Heavy reading time and again with those round, steel-rimmed spectacles so much like his own.

Heavy sits back down on the side of the bed. Medic's lips twitch at the dip of the mattress near his waist. Heavy is sitting nearer to him. This pleases him, immensely. He hopes it doesn't show on his face.

"Very vell, Doktor. I tell you story in my mother tongue. You do not mind that you don't understand?"

He shakes his head on the pillow. Heavy doesn't rest a hand on his knee this time, but it doesn't matter. Heavy is speaking, tenderly, gradually. The room around them falls away. In the distance, he hears the melodious chirrup of a lark. He feels cool rock against his back and under his splayed hands. He hears the tremendous din of a waterfall nearby, and even as he wonders how he can also hear the lark's song, he feels water lapping at his feet and ankles.

He opens his eyes. He can see. With a gasp, he steps away from the rock face and deeper into a clear stream, watching iridescent fish swim past his lower legs. Sunlight sparkles across the water like a mantle of diamonds. The sky is endless and cloudless. Flat stones peek between his bare toes and massage his soles. The sun shines down upon him, upon another figure standing in the stream beside him.

It is Heavy, in a red t-shirt and jeans rolled up to the knees. Heavy is bent forward, immersing one hand into the stream, entertained by the fishes that nibble his fingers. Water droplets glisten on his skin, anointing it like tiny stars whose glare makes Medic's eyelids flicker behind his spectacles. Heavy's teeth are as pearlescent, all the more brighter in the smile that Heavy aims at him.

Heavy's lips move, but his voice reverberates from the heavens, all-encompassing, surging over and into Medic in inescapable, divine waves. Something in him changes and becomes fragile, vulnerable. It yearns to reach out to Heavy, to entwine with the other man until they are a complex and new entity, indistinguishable from each other.

Heavy's fingers graze his cheek.

He shuts his eyes. His lower lip quivers when he feels the press of calloused finger pads upon it.

"Doktor?"

He opens his eyes, and sees darkness. There is nothing but air on his lips.

"Did you fall asleep, Doktor? Sorry I vake you."

Medic blinks several times. Sucks in a juddering breath as something in his chest stutters. He's here in his room, in their Teufort base in New Mexico. There is no lark singing, no waterfall, no stream.

Heavy did not caress his lips with those strong fingers.

"Nein … No, I vasn't asleep. I vas –"

Dreaming. Of you. Of us.

This too, Medic keeps to himself deep inside.

"Haha, my story vas so boring, it make you daydream, da?"

He reaches out again. He touches cotton cloth swathed around a burly torso, and feels powerful muscles beneath a layer of fat clench. Heavy is warm, solid. Real.

"It vas not boring at all. It vas … wunderbar."

Heavy doesn't move away from his hand. Heavy's belly rises and falls with long, stable breaths, and Medic wonders how Heavy is so composed after reading with such concentration, such passion. He wonders what this amazing book could be, to transport him to a paradise in which Heavy is in love with him as much as he is with Heavy.

"Read zhis story to me again tomorrow?" he implores, his treacherous heart gaining control of his mouth.

When Heavy murmurs, "As you vish, Doktor," he thanks it.

The click of his door after they bid each other goodnight is loud tonight. He listens to the pulsation in his ears, to his constant, quiet inhalations and exhalations. He feels the hem of his blanket tucked around his neck and shoulders. He wriggles his toes once in a while. He turns his head towards the window, his eyes half-lidded, unseeing.

At dawn, his eyes are still open. He dreams of trilling birds, majestic waterfalls and the glorious smile of a lover in another world.

Heavy reads to him in Russian for two more nights. Each time, he is conveyed to that luminous utopia of endless skies, lush woodland and crystal-clear streams. Each time, there is no one else but the two of them, standing or wading through the stream hand in hand, a breeze blowing into their faces. Each time, the place becomes more tangible, more true.

He is reluctant to leave it. Here, he can be whoever he wants to be. Here, he can be with Heavy who gazes at him with the sun in his eyes, who caresses his face with the gentlest of fingers.

"Doktor, you are not bored vith me talking?"

No. Never, mein Liebling.

"If I am," he says instead, "I vill tell you."

He never does. He never has to.

On the third night, he asks Heavy for the title of the book being read. He has to know. When the day comes that Heavy is no longer in his life, he will perhaps have this book in German or English for company. It will never be enough, no, but it will be better than nothing.

Heavy coughs once. Fidgets on the side of the bed.

"Heavy?"

It feels like a multitude of eternities before Heavy stammers, "It is, uh … it is … Advanced Rifle Ballistics."

Blind as they are, Medic's eyes widen anyway. His lower jaw sags in astonishment, then snaps back up as his brain – free to reason again in Heavy's silence – whips out a perfectly logical explanation. Of course the book would be about guns and bullets. Of course it would be. Everyone on the team knows of Heavy's devotion to his Mini-gun, Sasha. Heavy once strangled Scout with one hand just for laying a finger on the weapon and leaving a grease stain.

How foolish he is, for thinking for a moment that Heavy has been reading to him anything other than an impersonal instruction manual about ballistics.

"Ah. I see."

He hopes his disillusionment doesn't show on his face.

Still, he entreats Heavy to read to him in Russian once more the next evening. As Heavy does, tendrils of color start to materialize before his eyes. He scrunches his eyes shut and then opens them. He and Heavy inhale sharply at the same time as they gaze at each other.

"Heavy, I zhink … my sight is returning."

Heavy's blurry smile is more brilliant than any his imagination has conjured so far. He cannot help smiling back as he blinks many times, as Heavy grasps his shoulder and anchors him to this world with warmth and relief. Yes, he can see Heavy in that snug, red t-shirt and those dark brown trousers, and if he just glances down at Heavy's lap –

Heavy is chuckling and exclaiming about miracles. Both of Heavy's hands are now clasping his upper arms in joy and there is no book in them. No book on Heavy's lap or on the floor or bedside table.

"I am very happy, Doktor! It is good day today!" Heavy says, and Medic stares up at him, feeling cool waters lapping at his feet, feeling sunshine upon his head while a lark sings though it is night in an arid desert.

There is no book.

There never was one.

A week later, his eyesight fully restored, his rewarding vengeance upon BLU's Pyro fulfilled, he finds Heavy alone in the base's small library adjacent to the rec room. Heavy is garbed in a white t-shirt, jeans and boots. Heavy is seated on one of the crimson cushioned chairs in front of the lit fireplace, his legs crossed at the ankles, his large hands and his vivid blue eyes preoccupied with a leather-bound volume whose cover has golden Cyrillic text printed on it. Heavy has his spectacles on.

Heavy is a gorgeous, humbling vision to behold.

Medic smiles to himself as he saunters up to the twin crimson chair facing Heavy's. It is apt that today is the seventh day since his recovery. It is on the seventh day that a god laid down to rest forevermore after creating a new world, leaving its fate to chance. It is on a day like today that other gods will make new worlds, new utopias.

It is time for his utopia to be born.

"Good evening, Heavy."

Heavy straightens up and removes his spectacles upon noticing him. Smiles at him with crinkled eyes and pearlescent teeth.

"Dobry vecher, Doktor. You have come to sit by fire also?"

Medic settles on crimson cushions. He has to glance away from Heavy for a second, to calm the tremors in his chest. He feels like he is slipping into a reverie. He feels like everything is unreal except Heavy and him, sitting face to face here, something fragile and vulnerable in them yearning to reach out to each other.

He gazes at Heavy's face, at its inimitable arrangement of features, pigments and textures. He rubs his hands on his thighs.

"I vas zhinking about zhe book you read to me. Vill you lend it to me?"

Heavy's eyes flicker shut in surprise. It occurs so swiftly that if Medic hadn't anticipated it, he would have surely missed it. He sits nearer to the edge of his seat. Nearer to Heavy.

"But, Doktor … it is in Russian."

"It does not matter."

Heavy's expression and posture betray nothing. The darting of his gaze to the fireplace, however, does. Heavy is about to concoct a lie.

"I – I am sorry. I already lend it to Sniper. He, uh, vas interested in book about rifles."

Inwardly, Medic grins. The fire beside them is dim and weak compared to the mounting heat within him.

"Oh. Vell," Medic says, straight-faced. "I vas unavare zhat Sniper can read Russian."

Heavy's eyes have gone stark. Heavy has frozen in place, like a great rock poised on a precipice over a howling sea or a towering waterfall. The book in Heavy's hands is closed and seized tightly to a clenched belly.

"Zhere is no book. Is zhere?"

He watches the Adam's apple in Heavy's throat bob hard.

"Nyet," Heavy whispers.

"You lied to me. Vhy?"

Heavy's gaze dart to the fireplace again, then back at his face, then at a spot over his left shoulder. Heavy's nervousness stirs something in him, something that wants to brush away the lines of worry on Heavy's forehead and between Heavy's eyebrows.

"I … You …" Heavy grits his teeth, then looks him in the eye and says in a firmer voice, "Your friendship has great meaning for me. There are things I … cannot tell you, Doktor. Or you vill never speak to me again. You vill hate me."

Medic drags his chair closer to Heavy, until their knees are a mere inch apart. He can feel the muscles of heavy's legs and arms tense without touching them. He can smell the fresh soap that lingers on Heavy's skin. He can hear Heavy's breaths fraying. He can feel the fire in Heavy too, see it in the ardor of Heavy's stare that he matches easily.

"Let me be zhe judge of zhat, hmm?"

"Doktor –"

"Tell me zhe story again. In English."

Medic rests his hands on Heavy's knees. Heavy's lower lip quivers as if it is being pressed on by the tender fingers of a lover. Heavy leans back on crimson cushions and stares up at the ceiling for a while, the portrait of an anguished saint about to sacrifice all he has.

Heavy swallows hard, then sighs.

The world falls quiet in reverence of the giant, resonant-voiced god who begins his finest act of creation.

"I stand in a stream in the sunlight. The cloudless sky above stretch on and on. The vater all around me shine like diamonds. I vatch colorful fishes svim around my legs, and I let them bite my fingers vhen I put my hand in the vater. I smile at them. I hear the thunder of a cold vaterfall. I hear a bird singing a song of love. I feel the stones under my feet. I think about picking some to keep.

"I look up, and I see you near, standing in the stream also. Your white shirt is open. Your trousers are rolled up to your knees. You look up at the sky. Your eyes are big vith vonder. You are happy to be here. Vith me. I smile at you, and you smile back, your face shining like a star. You valk through the vater to me. You stand still vhen I touch your face, your lips. Your breath is hot. It varms my fingers, my heart.

"You hold my hand and move it avay from your mouth. The sunshine make you glow. I feel drunk if I look at you too long. You pull me down and kiss me vith lips that taste of berries. You bite my lip. You smile as you kiss me, pull me even closer. You make me feel as if I can be anyone I vant to be. You make me feel as if I can do anything. You do something to me inside. You change me, until I cannot tell vhere you begin and I end. I am lost in you, you in me, lost in the fire, and I am reborn into something new. Something real. Something … that is yours."

From far away, Medic hears the harmonious, arresting warble of a Calandra Lark. He feels sunshine upon him. He feels the brawn of Heavy's thighs beneath his palms, feels Heavy's breaths against his face.

The book in Heavy's grip tumbles to the floor.

"Go on then. Hate me. Kill me," Heavy whispers hoarsely.

Medic's fingers dig into Heavy's thighs. He inhales deeply, absorbing Heavy's scent into his lungs, his blood. He lunges forward and closes in on Heavy, a god in awe of another, and the air erupts out of Heavy in a gust when he presses the sides of their noses together.

"Oh yes, I vill kill you, my love," he whispers in return. "Kill you vith a thousand small deaths und bring you back to life, again und again –"

And Medic goes weak in the knees and collapses on Heavy as Heavy crushes their lips together, roves those large, large hands under his shirt and clutches him to that massive, strapping body he's dreamed of his whole life. His stomach flips violently. He moans unabashedly into Heavy's mouth and arches his back, pushing his chest against Heavy's, his buttocks into Heavy's palms. He nips at Heavy's lips and devours the sounds of delight that Heavy makes. He drowns in the wealth of rough, open-mouthed kisses that follow. He moans again when their lips pull apart, when Heavy's thigh rubs against his throbbing cock.

"So," he pants, his smirk wobbly, his eyes glinting like Heavy's are. "Vas our first kiss as good as you imagined?"

"No." Heavy pauses, then grins from ear to ear. "Even better, moya lyubov."

Medic laughs, louder when Heavy abruptly stands up with him in a mighty embrace and strides effortlessly out of the library towards the sleeping quarters. He kisses along Heavy's angular jaw, licking and nibbling here and there. He is so high on the sensations of being carried by Heavy, of Heavy's torso between his thighs, of Heavy's scent in arousal that he doesn't realize they're in Heavy's room until Heavy drops him on the bed and strips him of his dress shirt, trousers and shoes.

His fingers skim over Heavy's in their haste to divest both of them of their clothes. He ends up on top of Heavy, straddling Heavy's hips, grinding against Heavy's thick, long erection. He moans yet again when Heavy rises up and nuzzles his chest hair and sucks his nipples. He shivers as Heavy licks him from between his collarbones and up his neck to his chin, kisses him on the lips and cheeks, reads the stories inscribed into his skin and flesh. In sweet retaliation, he wraps his mouth around Heavy's cock and takes Heavy down his throat until his nose encounters curly, coarse hair. He's beyond teasing now, and he sucks hard, tonguing that spot under the frenulum that drives Heavy wild and makes Heavy buck into his mouth. Delectable pre-come pulses onto his tongue, a taste of more potent pleasures to come.

He lets out a half-groan of a noise at Heavy pulling out of his mouth with a slick pop.

"Doktor, I … I vant you in me."

His cock jolts hard in inspiration, if not experience. He'd been married in the past and had penetrative intercourse with his former wife, but his sexual experiences afterwards with other men have so far only involved handjobs and blowjobs.

"You have not done this vith other men?"

Medic shakes his head.

"It seems, mein Schatz, you have some new tricks to teach zhis old dog."

Heavy's eyes gleam at the German term of endearment.

"Old dog? I see only handsome, strong hound."

For that, Medic kisses him urgently and lays full-bodied on top of Heavy, knowing Heavy will bear his weight with no trouble. He glides one hand down to Heavy's hip and squeezes it, requesting final permission to bury himself in his lover, his treasure. Wanting it. Needing it.

Heavy groans into his lips and spreads his legs in an undeniable answer of yes, yes.

Medic thinks about how fortunate he is as he prepares Heavy with his fingers and a generous amount of lubricant. How fortunate he is, that Heavy allows him to roll them onto their sides, to thrust into that primed, ample bottom to the hilt, to revel in the rhythmic tightening of inner muscles around him while he bites his lip at the intense, amazing pressure and strokes Heavy's erection with one hand. He lets Heavy's noises of bliss guide him. He starts slow, shallow. He kisses the back of Heavy's neck as he speeds up, runs one hand across a shoulder blade when Heavy tenses and shoves back with a whimper. Oh, he's found that spot inside Heavy. Oh.

He feels Heavy shudder with every thrust now. He goes faster when Heavy urges him to, grips Heavy's hips and fucks Heavy faster, harder until Heavy is crying out, gasping, begging him so exquisitely to not stop, never stop. The headboard makes a very satisfying thump each time it smacks into the wall. He squashes his arms around Heavy's torso and hugs Heavy close, feeling something in himself burst and spill and fly.

His orgasm hits him dazzlingly, suddenly like the storm-swollen deluge of a waterfall. He is consumed whole by it, and he whirls in it, his breath robbed from him. He muffles his yell in Heavy's shoulder, hears Heavy's own muffled shout into a pillow. Heavy comes onto the bed in forceful jets.

Later, much later, after Medic has also taken Heavy inside him and claimed him, they cuddle under the blankets, their breaths returning to a leisurely pace. Heavy holds him in those grand arms and plays with his tousled hair. He tucks his head beneath Heavy's chin and listens to the steady beat of Heavy's magnificent heart, the heart he'd once borne in his hands.

"Ich liebe dich, mein Heavy," he rasps into Heavy's neck, blinded by stinging wetness.

Heavy's reply in Russian, as well as the waves of affection and devotion in it, needs no translation.

"Ya lyublyu tebya, moy darogoi vrach."

Morning sunlight shines down upon them as Heavy carries him piggyback-style and wades through clear, spring-cool waters. A medium waterfall rumbles nearby, plunging from a high plain down five rocky tiers into the basin of a winding valley. He points at the fishes he sees swimming around them, and Heavy lets loose a happy chortle, a sound as splendid as the warble of larks in the dense forest surrounding them.

They are alone in this secret paradise, many miles away from his home village of Rottenburg. He likes it that way. Heavy carries him without complaint, without exertion. He sets his head on Heavy's shoulder and smiles to himself.

"Zhis is vhere Vatti und Mutti vould take me, vhen Vatti wasn't vorking," he says into the red cotton covering Heavy's shoulder. "I vould svim in zhe deeper parts vhile zhey had a picnic on zhe bank."

Heavy's hands are holding his. They stroke his fingers in a wordless motion of appreciation of him sharing this tidbit of his past. He's trying his best to disclose as much as he can of who he was before their days of RED, before they met, trying to overcome his reticence and the murkiness in his head for his lover's sake. It's nice to know his endeavors are valued.

Heavy carries him to a shallower part of the stream, where he slithers off Heavy's broad back to stand in the water next to Heavy. Heavy is regarding the natural beauty encircling them with soft eyes.

"Beautiful," Heavy murmurs. "Look, Doktor. Look."

"But I am looking," Medic replies, gazing up at Heavy's cherished face, at the sunshine girdling Heavy's shaven head in a halo.

His eyes are big with wonder. He knows that Heavy knows he is happy to be here when Heavy gazes down at him and smiles with the splendor of a shining star. He stand still as Heavy caresses his face and lips with the gentlest of fingers. He warms them with his breath, his heart.

He clasps Heavy's hand and slowly moves it away from his mouth. Heavy is glowing in the light. He feels like he'll become drunk if he looks at Heavy too long, but he doesn't care and he envelopes the back of Heavy's neck with a hand and pulls Heavy down for a kiss. He nibbles on Heavy's lips and tastes blueberries. He smiles into Heavy's lips and pulls his giant lover ever closer to him, basking in the low, earnest moan that Heavy bestows upon him.

He's been irrevocably changed. He can't tell where he begins and Heavy ends. He's lost in the kiss, in Heavy, and he likes it that way. Very much.

"Ve can be anyone ve vant to be, here."

Heavy stares into his eyes with shimmering ones. He wonders if there's a lump in Heavy's throat too.

"I vish only to be yours," Heavy answers quietly, truthfully. "And for you to be mine."

"You are mine," Medic whispers into their next kiss. "Und I am yours. Alvays."

And that, too, is absolutely true.

Fin