He was on fire.
Tord's back arched, and he bit down harder on the cloth in his mouth, the pain returning full force as the bone saw dragged through his arm. Patryck was at his left, holding his leader's hand in an attempt to lessen the pain. The field doctor was at his right, lobbing off the forsaken limb.
And god, did it hurt.
Tord's face was flushed and sweaty, his lips almost as pale as his skin. He was shaking, gasping through the rag between his teeth as the field doctor worked to remove his arm.
The base didn't have all of the medical supplies necessary for a thorough procedure, the list including general anesthetic. Tord would have to be awake through the brutal removal of his arm, whether he liked it or not.
He was told not to look at it, but he couldn't keep his eyes off of it.
They were lobbing it off at the shoulder, an inch or so below the joint. Blood was slowing from the wound at that point, likely because it was clotting. He had been told that they had plenty of donor blood in their bank, so everything would be fine. That didn't ease the fact that the green sanitary cloth underneath him had pools of red on it, having soaked up all that they could.
He watched the field doctor lift the dead limb, carefully cutting away at the portion of skin that still connected it to Tord's body.
Tord knew how amputation worked - she was salvaging a piece to sew over the clean separation on his shoulder.
Once the skin was cut, the limb fell to the table with a thump, no longer a part of Tord.
He looked away as she took out a needle and surgical thread. He knew it was silly - he had just watched the gory removal of his arm, yet he was scared of a lowly needle. No matter how strong he was physically, he still had his own mental quirks that made him feel weak.
The repeated pricking of the needle was all he could feel, his body involuntarily tensing every time he felt the needle enter. He had expected her to sew his lip back together, but she decided against it - it would have been impossible for him to speak with his lip drawn so tightly over his teeth. It would only split open again. She simply attached gauze to either side of the split, stuffing cotton behind it. If it stayed that way too long, however, she warned his gums would recede, the teeth going with them. That would take time, however, time that they thankfully still had.
"You're going to have to stay in the med bay until your replacement is repaired, but I think you're going to heal just fine." The medic mumbled, attempting to ease Tord's mind as she finished the last few stitches.
He nodded shakily, closing his functional eye. His only eye.
She had already cut out the split eye, covering the hole with a gauze pad and medical tape. She also had removed the metal scrap from his side. It entered at his waistline, only going an inch or so into his flesh. It was a miracle that nothing was torn or broken internally.
"Thank you, Celia." Patryck sighed, giving Tord's hand a reassuring squeeze. "I'll be sure that Paul gets working on the replacement immediately, sir."
Tord opened his mouth a bit, and Patryck carefully took the cloth from it, setting it nearby.
Tord swallowed roughly, hoping his voice wouldn't come out too hoarse.
"Thank you, Pat. Can you le-!" He flinched at the sound of Celia cutting the remaining thread, immediately continuing. "Can you let Paul know I'm okay? I know he won't visit me for a bit - he hates the sight of blood."
Patryck nodded. "Yes, Red Leader. I'll make sure he knows."
Tord smiled a bit, the most he could manage without pain. "At ease, soldier."
Patryck smiled back tiredly, letting go of Tord's remaining hand, leaving quietly. His footsteps faded out of his leader's ears.
He opened his eye, watching as Celia pulled off her surgical gloves before rummaging though the glass cabinet of medication against the wall. Most of the medication was stolen from pharmacies all over Europe, a small amount of it being prescriptions of actual soldiers. Only Celia could deal those out.
She pulled out a white bottle with crude letters drawn on with permanent marker - Tramadol. She walked over to Tord, whose hand was still resting on the table above his head. Celia shook the bottle above his hand, three pills falling out onto his palm. She took one back, folding his fingers over the remaining two.
"Take these love, they should take away some of the pain." She murmured, brushing her dirty blonde hair behind her ears.
Tord groaned, moving his arm to get a closer look at the pills. His body felt lopsided, too heavy on the left. "Why couldn't I 've taken these before you chopped off my arm?"
"It does wonders to stop the pain, but it's a blood thinner. You would've bled out before I could even think about sewing you up."
Tord nodded to himself, popping the pills into his mouth and swallowing them dry.
His dead arm sat a few inches from the new end of his arm, still oozing lumps of coagulated blood from the stringy muscle. Tord couldn't see it in detail unless he turned his whole head to look.
He would have to get used to that.
Celia appeared again, hooking him up to a blood bag before patting blood away from Tord's new stump with a cheese cloth. It hurt, but it was dull in comparison to what he had just gone through.
"So, once I'm done here," Celia mumbled as she wiped the seams of his flesh. "I'll wrap this up," Tord's breath hitched as she nicked one of the stitches on accident, continuing as if she hadn't. "And I'll need to do one last thing before wrapping your face again."
"What is it?" Tord asked, turning his head to get a better look at Celia.
"There's a shrapnel wound on the side of your head - Patryck noticed it. To get to it and safely clean it, I'll need to shave the part of your head."
Tord's eyes widened. Sure, he had gone numb to most of the pain, but he had never felt the chunks of metal that embedded themselves in his head. The shrapnel cut through his flesh from his eyebrow, like a crashing plane dragging through soft earth, before settling above his right ear.
Tord was tempted to reach up and touch it, but was stopped when Celia put a hand mirror in front of his face.
"This should be easier." She breathed. The reflection was dirty, the glass fogged, but it was enough for Tord to see himself.
He was thankful he didn't look at himself in the car's mirror - his face looked better than it had felt, now that blood wasn't pouring from it and Celia had sewn the smaller wounds shut. That didn't change the fact that Tord see his teeth through his bottom lip, his skin puffy with burns. That his remaining eye was bloodshot and wet with tears. That his hair was burned and caked in dry blood.
The way she shaved his head was almost therapeutic. She had removed her gloves, her hands soft and uncallused as she supported his head with one hand and worked the clippers across his temple with the other. Her hands were nothing like Tom's- his were rough and callused, rarely holding Tord with such gentle sweetness. There were plenty of times when Tord had felt the roughness of those hands, however, with each tense choking, or every harsh slap he had received over the years. Tord never hated Tom for that, it was mutual, and some of it was actually consensual. That was just how their relationship worked.
Tord couldn't see Celia working, only able to hear and feel it. The clippers dragged their way across the side of his head in a portly teardrop shape that started at his temple, drooping back several inches before sharply curling back up to his earlobe. It was nearly half of his head, growing dangerously close to his horn-like spikes of hair. It felt uneven, just by the way Celia's hand moved. She kept the cut close to his head for a while before quickly withdrawing it once she reached the point she wanted.
Tord remembered how it felt to have Tom's fingers carding through that hair, slower and much softer than the clippers. That was always when Tom was the most gentle - right after sex, Tord resting his head on Tom's chest, a hand on the Brit's soft stomach. That was the part Tord loved the most.
He found himself unconsciously leaning into Celia's clippers, still thinking about Tom and his gentle touch.
He kept his eyes clenched shut as Celia tugged the pieces of metal from his head, and balled his hand into a fist as she sewed him up.
"That should do it," she sighed, smoothing the edges of the bandages one last time before holding a hand out to Tord. He took it, and she aided him in sitting up. The rush of blood in his body made him dizzy, feeling nauseous from that motion alone. He refused to appear weak, despite his skin growing pale. He moved to grab the pole that was holding the blood bag to support himself, the tube in his vein shifting in a way he wished it didn't. "Let's get you to the ward."
"...Thank you." Tord breathed, looking up at Celia.
"Don't mention it, sir. It's my duty to you." She smiled to him.
Three weeks pass in the medical ward with little word from Paul.
"It's almost done, it's almost done." He would say when asked. In his defense, he did have to rewire the entire arm and build it a new bicep, but that could have been done in mere days. This was the man who build a bionic leg in under twelve hours, after all.
Tord was in his cot, propped up against the wall with rolled up towels, trying to regain control over his stump arm while taking a break from paperwork. His stitches had been removed a week ago, the bandages no longer necessary. He wore a proper eye-patch to cover the remaining hole; everything was waiting on Paul and that damned arm.
Tord glared at the stump, feeling the muscles tense under his gaze. It still didn't feel like his arm was gone. The feeling could only be described as wearing a ring or a bracelet everyday, getting used to it being there, then removing it. The phantom feeling of a ring was what his arm felt like. There in his mind, but not in reality.
He had managed to get it to move away from his body, but not forward or back. The scars simply felt too tight for it. Every once and a while, one of Tord's good companions, Jan, would come in and aid him in physical therapy for it, holding the stump with careful hands as he helped Tord move it.
Jan Wolkaburr was Tord's beacon through all of this. He was a broad Finnish man with a sweet smile and soft blue eyes, a kind face that strongly contrasted Tord's. Jan was Tord's second in command, referred to as "Secondary Leader" by members of the army. When Tord was away, Jan took charge. When leading, he was just as ruthless as Tord, if not more, just to impress the Norsk.
Jan was Tord's drinking buddy, second in command, and friend with benefits. They used each other to blow off steam, something Tord desperately needed at times. They normally didn't go further than blowjobs, and they hadn't even done that in months, since Tord had gotten cocky over his retrieval mission and left all his stress at the door.
Tord had been feeling off for days, and he was blaming the surgery for his nausea. Sure, it had been weeks ago, but he was still on painkillers, it had to be a side effect. That was the only logical reason he had for it. He had his own theories, since there was little to do in the ward. He had already finished all of his paperwork, wadded and refolded every towel, and picked every scab from his midsection. He had noticed that his middle felt softer, like he had been gaining weight - despite exercising whenever he was allowed to leave the ward. It was rare for him to get permission, but it was fairly easy for him to sneak out.
The medical ward was one large room, sectioned off by cloth dividers to give wounded soldiers some sense of privacy. Tord's favorite activity was wadding up towels and throwing them as far as he could over the dividers.
Tord gave up on moving his arm for now, carefully getting up from the cot and cringing at the feeling of his feet on the cold concrete floor. There was a small folding table beside the cot which had a balled up pair of socks on it. Tord hastily grabbed them, pulling them on before standing up.
Walking around the base without the dominating crack of his boots' heels trailing behind him was strange, unfamiliar even. He felt small, dressed in nothing but a hospital gown, sweatpants, and socks. Regardless, he continued, his pace a quickened stumble.
He knew the base like the back of his hand - it had been his home for over eight years. He knew where everything was, from the boiler room to the landing strips outside.
He quickly made his way to one of the more familiar rooms of the base, with a worn metal door that's brown paint was beginning to chip and rust. Next to that door was a small metal placard - Engineering & Repair.
This room was like a second home to Tord, both in his days as a soldier and as a leader. Before he had lost his arm, before he took over the base, he worked in that room, tinkering and experimenting with wires and motherboards and scraps.
But right now, he didn't wish to fiddle with anything.
He turned the door handle, please to find it unlocked, and pushed it open.
"Any progress?" He asked, taking a step into the room.
The person hunched over the workbench didn't seem to hear him. Sparks flew to the figure's right, fizzling out before they could hit the innumerable blueprints taped and tacked to the wall. There was a faint tune in the background - a jazzy, 20s sounding song playing quietly, the person singing along to it as they worked. Tord recognized the song from the person's singing alone.
"Life could be a dream
Tord came closer, putting his hand on the back of the chair.
"Paul."
The figure jumped, nearly spitting his cigarette across the room.
"Ah-Ye-...Yes, sir?" He yelped, fumbling with the blow torch in his hand. He managed to turn it off before nearly dropping it.
"Progress. Have you made any?"
Paul nodded, turning most of his body to get a better look at Tord.
The radio continued on without Paul. "Hello hello again, sh-boom, I'm hopin' we'll meet again."
"I hope you didn't like the paint job too much, 'cus I had to sand most of it off to get to the main wires. Whoever painted it before this painted right over the seams in the metal."
"That would be me," Tord smiled, leaning against the wall to Paul's right.
His first project had started as a number of robotic arms on his desk, then it became a cockpit that he took his smoking breaks in, then an entire robot. He had spent nearly a year building it, but had no place for it. He had decided to store it his friend's home beneath his lab, disassembled. The large pit under of the house was meant to be a bomb shelter, but it was better to have no bomb shelter than a 100 foot tall robot standing in the backyard in full view.
Paul turned his swivel chair to face Tord, holding the robotic arm with both hands.
The red paint was only partially removed, the dull silver of the metal showing through in a few spots. The chipped paint made it look worn and old, despite being fixed to near-perfect condition.
"I modified the shoulder so we wouldn't have to slice open your nub and cram the wires in," Paul said proudly, touching the grey shoulder piece. It looked like a shoulder pad, but had a strange, muscly texture to it. Paul turned it over, revealing multiple circular pads crowning the oddly textured sleeve. "The electrodes attached should help you move it, and there's elastic in the elbow now."
Tord nodded, his eyes locked on the robotic arm. "Do you think it's ready to be used?"
Paul nodded back. "Yes, sir."
Putting it on was a bit of a hassle - the grey part went over his remaining stump like a sleeve, and the electrodes had to be attached to his chest, upper back, and around the entirety of his stump arm. It was awkward for Tord, as he held the hospital gown around one elbow while Paul carefully touched him.
Once it was on, Paul squinted, admiring his handiwork. Despite his pride, it hung lifelessly at Tord's side.
"Treat it like it's your old arm, just think about moving it." Paul mumbled. "Do something easy, like a simple hand gesture."
Tord did; he focused as he did every second of the day, trying to move that damned arm.
The arm slowly lifted at the elbow, sitting stiffly at a right angle. Then, all the fingers curled in, spare for his thumb.
Paul looked ecstatic - he had finally finished the bulk of his assignment. "Amazing sir," he smiled, "Now try and put it back down."
Tord nodded, and was so excited that the arm ended up shooting down so quickly that Tord punched himself in the thigh, the fingers still curled into a thumbs up.
Paul was surprised to hear his leader laugh, a gentle chuckle with a crooked smile, happy to have an arm again.
"Thank you, Paul." He mumbled, the fingers of the robotic hand moving like a wave at his side.
"One last test," Paul grinned, pulling something out from behind his back. "Think fast!"
The soldier hurled a rubber band ball at his leader, the robotic arm immediately springing up to catch the projectile.
"Perfect." Paul chuckled, watching Tord stare at the ball in surprise. "It reacts on your brainwaves and muscle movement. You wanted to catch it, so you did. Just treat it like your old arm, and it should work perfectly."
Tord stared at the arm.
"Now, throw it back to me."
Tord threw it hard enough to give Paul a shiner that would last a lifetime.
They laughed over a goodbye as Tord left, still marveling the handiwork of his soldier.
He wasn't even halfway back to the medical ward when he nearly keeled over, suddenly overcome by the nausea he'd been feeling all day. It suddenly grew enough to make him clamp a hand over his mouth and break into a sprint.
He knew the restroom was just around the corner, and he knew he couldn't risk the embarrassment of throwing up on his own feet.
He barely made it to the restroom, scrambling into the first stall and heaving into the toilet. He hoped he couldn't be heard through the bustle of the base - showing any sort of weakness around his army was nothing short of mortifying.
Like any other sane person, he hated getting sick, but it felt even worse because he didn't feel any better after throwing up. He leaned on the stall's flimsy wall with the cool metal of the robotic arm pressed against his stomach. It still seemed to ache under the artificial limb, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.
Once he was confident that he wasn't going to get sick again, he stood slowly, flushed the toilet, and left. He wiped his mouth on his bare arm as he walked, metal arm pressed against his stomach as he quickly headed to his own private quarters. All rules of the ward were vetoed now that Tord's body was complete again.
He threw off the hospital gown, opting for his uniform. It had been steamed and pressed, waiting in his closet for Tord's return. The robot arm slid easily through the sleeve, his uniform still fitting perfectly.
He decided nobody would need to know that he was sick - it would likely pass, and was likely caused by the
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