Profile
Pre 1930s (1899-1929) background: West's past before the 70s is pretty vague to everyone who knows him currently, but he's mixed Cuban/German and grew up in a decently well off family in Saxony, Germany. West has had an interest in the human body and anatomy since he was a child, but had no way to really act on his intrigues. When he was a child, West was narcissistic, cold, stand-offish, had hardly any friends and was happy about it. He was pleased just reading anatomy books in his room, dissecting roadkill, and pushing other kids off roofs to see if they would die or not. His parents were very warm, loving and spoiled him absolutely rotten, but West hated the two and blatantly ignored them as often as he could. They pushed him to have other hobbies besides his macabre interests, but nothing stuck due to his brattiness and childish behavior towards them. The biggest thing they tried getting West into was playing the piano, which he was actually good at, but he resented it on a fundamental level due to it being forced on him. He still can't stand the piano. His violent streak started young, where he would invite other kids his age to the woods and attempt beating or killing them, but he was usually overpowered or couldn't catch up to the kids who ran away. His violence was routinely covered up by his parents, they knew what he was doing was bad, but they couldn't lose their angel in any way, so they covered up his crimes until he fled the country in his mid 20s after one too many reports of him sneaking into hospitals and performing cruel and unwarranted surgeries on random patients were filed. He came and went through various Eastern European countries, each time getting either ran out or fleeing due to his crimes. Eventually, he stuck around in Russia for a few years, where he lived in a small cabin on the outskirts of a town in the middle of nowhere. He performed his own gender-affirming surgeries while in that cabin, as well as offered his services to the other residents, what he didn't tell them was that he'd usually just end up killing them on accident through his own sheer curiosities. West had a reputation for being a mysterious foreigner that always seemed to bring news of sudden illness and organ failures which were suspicious to say the least, but he was the only "doctor" for miles. Redmond and The Administrator found West during this time, and he was hired for his brutality, lack of remorse and medical experience he totally didn't lie about having. Perfect for a combat Medic.
1930s/TFC: In 1930 he immigrates to America for RED contract work in the Gravel War, where he was assigned to be the Medic of the 9-person team usually stationed in Badlands, New Mexico. He hated it. West only accepted the contract to get his hands dirty and learn more about the human body along the way, what he didn't sign up for was being bossed around by 8 other morons who couldn't seem to stay alive for more than 5 minutes before needing his assistance. If he wanted to be a babysitter, he would've opened an orphanage, for God’s sake. He especially detested the pseudo boss/leader of his team, Stanford Cain; the Heavy Weapons Guy. When he wasn't scoffing and belittling the other men on their team or staring at himself in mirrors, he was having a fist fight with Cain over a minor disagreement about battle plans or what everyone would be having for dinner. The team didn't know what to expect of their Medic, but it probably wasn't a bratty, egotistical man child who would scream his head off at their boss while throwing things across the room at him. They also didn't expect for him to be such a private man at the same time, as he told them nothing about himself barring his last name and the fact he would rather be anywhere else in the world than here. It took him multiple years to even reveal his face to them all, including Cain, which went extremely poorly.
1940s-50s: After a good few years of working together, West calmed down a bit and became more comfortable with the other men (and Pyro) but he still acted like an emotionally constipated egomaniac a lot. It's during this time that his relationship with Cain becomes something slightly different, as they officially became lovers, despite everyone else's horror. The two of them had an odd chemistry together, where they would act like lovesick teenagers one minute and then send each other to respawn the next. It was objectively toxic, but they loved it. The two of them would spend many nights entangled in each other's limbs discussing concepts of the world ending, humanity dying out, everything starting anew, torturing the other team's and more. West and Cain were both misanthropic violent sociopaths who saw kinship in each other more than anything, but also couldn't fucking stand each other. True love, honestly. For Christmas one year, West even brought Cain back to Germany with him, since Cain disowned his birth family.
1960s/TF2 main game: This is when the TF2 mercs replace the TFC group! As such, West and the rest of his team lose their jobs for a time. West and Cain temporarily live in hotels while travelling across the country together, when they decided to get married in 1962. Though of course, due to the laws of the time, they couldn't actually legally wed, but Cain whittled them each a wooden ring to wear, and they referred to each other as their life partners. It was mostly for their own sake, the old saps. Though this domestic bliss only lasted for a short 3 or so years, when they were hired directly by the Administrator to become Australium cache hunters for her, as well as the rest of their team and even the rest of the classic teams, excluding the classic BLU's, who were doing contract work for other companies and figures. With the team back together under the new name of Team Vanguard, it was strangely calm, with relatively easy work for the seasoned mercenaries. They practically lived on a huge submarine for the whole decade, which wasn't the most grand, and West found it pretty rubbish, but he was just happy to be doing work again.
1971/Comics: Good times never last, huh? During the six-month time span of the comics, the BLU classics hired by Gray Mann tracked down the 2 other teams including Echelon/Yellow and Citadel/Green, killing everyone on both. Once they finally got to Vanguard, they attacked the RED's sub, before boarding it to take care of them all. It was a horrific, bloody affair. West was the only survivor, miraculously, and was found by the Administrator's SOS responders in the navigation center sobbing uncontrollably, with Cain's body not too far away. The others were all found in various levels of "mush" across the sub. The responders noted that when West was found, there was a pistol close to him, but it was empty. West suffered minor injuries from the attack, mostly on his face. West was unresponsive to most attempts at asking questions and prodding, except when he was crying or dry heaving. He was a fucking mess. After such a traumatic experience, he was put on hold awaiting orders from Helen as she dealt with Gray and the modern RED team. He once again was living in a hotel for months on end, waiting for orders. He was in a deep depression during this time, and the only comfort he got was from talking out loud to Cain's urn.
1972: Once the comics storyline ends, Wests picks back up! He finally receieves his orders from Helen, which turned out to be... Getting rehired by RED to fight BLU again. Due to the inconclusivity of the current timeline and what happens post comics, I just run on the assumption that RED and BLU pick back up fighting over gravel for seemingly no reason lol. Regardless, he gets shipped back to New Mexico, where he is assigned a caretaker due to his age, a Pyro named Skeeter, who West fucking hates. Due to the trauma he endured in '71, West has become a much worse person overall in his behavior. He acts like how he did in the 30s, but even worse because he's a crotchety old man now. The only people on his team he gets along with are Medic and to a degree, Heavy. He hates everyone else on varying levels. He's rude, obnoxious, overly picky, spoiled, a massive brat, vain, just about every annoying trait you could have. Except now he's also.. lonely. And can hardly find the motivation to get out of bed anymore, but he has to. Since this war is now the only thing he has left from when things were good. If he willingly retired now, it would be admitting that everything is over.
General personality stuff: Clearly, West is a egomaniacal, violent, stupid bitch who hates everyone around him, and is too prideful to back down from anything. He hates being told what to do, when he was young it felt like being babied, and now as an older gentleman in his early 70's, it feels like everyone is treating him like he'll keel over at any time despite being effectively trapped as his age again due to respawn. West cannot stand being underestimated, and his reputation as a Medic causes that a lot, which he alleviates by being a battle Medic despite everyone elses disdain for it. West is stubborn, and will refuse to see things from others perspective, it's his way or go home! It also cannot be overstated how egotistical this man is. West's entire room is covered in different mirrors, he loves himself to such a comically extreme point that his first crush as a child.. was his own reflection. Before Cain, he truly thought he'd love nobody besides himself, and now that Cain is gone, his feelings about himself are still largely the same, but now with extra survivors guilt and knowing he's getting... older sprinkled on top. He still loves himself a bit too much to be considered anything resembling normal, but he'd be a moron not to notice the thinning of his skin, the graying of his hair, the new fat on his stomach, the wrinkles on his face, his worsening vision. It's more reminders that everything from his past is gone now, even his youthful beauty. It's bittersweet to him.
Trivia/fun facts: Though his full name is Heinrich West, he clearly only goes by West. Once he immigrated to America, he actually changed his first name to be Henry, but doesn't use that name anymore really. It's on his papers, but he never really cared for it. Cain gave him the nickname of "Hal" which he overused constantly when he was alive. West is a homosexual trans man (Though he uses the term transsexual, due to the time period.) West is 6'1" but wears shoes that give him an extra inch. His voice claim is Aurelio Voltaire, with his song Stuck With You being Cain and Wests anthem. His first language is German, Second is Spanish with his whopping third being English, notably his English skills were much worse in the 30s when he first joined RED. He also knows enough Russian to discuss medical issues and treatment. His favorite flowers are white narcissi/daffodils.
Weapons/Loadout: in TFC it's just the normal Medic arsenal, given there were no unlocks in that game. As such this includes the super nail gun, medkit, single and double barrel shotgun, basic and conc grenades. During his new tenure at RED, he is given the modern equipment to play with, since there's now 2 Medic's on the team, they usually plan on working together to be effecient healers, but that never actually happens. Medic himself is actually doing his job properly, meanwhile West is going full battle medic, because he's used to how it was in the good ol' days. His modern loadout is the vita-saw, kritzkrieg and blutsauger.
