When the Spy found out that she dyed her hair blonde, he knew she was going to be a problem.
It wasn't that he didn't like blondes in particular. He preferred brunettes, but blondes could be fun. As long as they didn't play into the stereotype, of course. The Spy always had a thing against women who changed their hair to blonde. If it was to support a natural color, then he supposed it would be fine, to some extent. It reeked of deception and insecurity, of needing to be perceived as beautiful and young on a shallow level. Not that he couldn't appreciate a good attempt at disguising one's self, particularly if it would forward their cause in battle. But for a woman to deny her natural beauty—well, it did not sit well with him.
Despite her vanity, she was not built like a typical woman. There was some hint of feminine features, a slight curve in her bust and hips, but she was otherwise built of iron. She wasn't that heavy of a woman, but she easily outweighed the Scout. She had been a cop of some sort, perhaps a detective. Well, that's what he thought at first. Her accent was similar to the Soldier's, tinged with the slightest of an Upper Midwestern Dialect. Her eyes were green, sharp, her vision accurate. She performed wonderful tricks with magnums and assault rifles, particularly skilled with an M16. The Soldier had taken to calling her equipment McNamara's leftovers, using hand guns and rifles prominent in the other war. And those handcuffs. He'd never forget those.
It didn't matter what her code name used to be. She was not a member of the team. She didn't deserve a title. To the Spy, she would be remembered only by her first name. Dixie.
Her quirks aside, the Spy's hatred for her was not an immediate reaction. It festered over a few days, little things making his senses prickle. First of all, Dixie was not very sporting. She didn't come crying to the Medic over every little boo-boo, but she would mercilessly assault anybody on the other team who looked at her the wrong way. If their team did well, she would be as plastered as the Demoman by the middle of the night. If not, she went to her room and sulked. Losing was always a pain, but it was better to not see her than to see her sloppy drunk and obnoxious.
Dixie was also a touch shallow. The Spy didn't know how she could be so peculiar when seven of the nine men had roughly identical physical structures. She had no patience for the Pyro, and the only time she would spend time with the Demoman was when he had extra alcohol available. She didn't hang around the Heavy much, either. If anything, she made disparaging comments about him behind his back. Not that the Spy didn't agree that the Heavy could stand to lose a few pounds, but his mass helped him to do his job. It would be like asking the Sniper to pluck out his eyes. Not everybody could be attracted to everything, but there was no need to be overly rude to one's own teammates, either.
The worst part about Dixie was how fast she was with her hands. The Spy knew how to perform a few tasks of his own, but he kept his hands to himself. She was always touching people. A hand on one man's shoulder, another wrapped around someone's palms. Her fingers had a tendency to wander through the scalp of the teammates without shaved heads. Sometimes, they would brush across a teammate's back, just above the belt line. It was unreserved, unfettered. A possessive action.
The Spy had enough of her antics after one incident in the locker room. While she wasn't an outright striptease, Dixie wasn't shy about showering with the men. If nobody bothered her, she didn't bother anybody else. There had been glances exchanged, and yes, she was fairly attractive beneath her uniform, but as long as nobody was knocking the soap out of their hands, nobody had a reason to worry.
Temptation had a title for Dixie, and that title was Scout.
The breaking point had been one night after several skirmishes. Their team had been victorious through the day, so Dixie had been overly excited. As they hit the showers, she congratulated the Scout. He'd done fantastic work that day, easily the best on the team. She said, "Congrats, kid!"
And then she'd slapped him on the ass.
Scout's freak-out resonated through the locker room. "Whoa whoa whoa! Whadda ya doin'?"
Dixie frowned. "What?"
"Listen, I don't know what crackerville state you come from, but don't go slappen' me on the ass, okay?" The Scout's hands were moving faster than his lips, waving like a crazed umpire.
"It's just what teammates do. Don't get so worked up over it, Squirt." She placed a hand on his shoulder, sending the Scout into another panic. He shrugged her hand off his shoulder.
The Scout huffed, backing out of the locker room sans shower. "It's not the same. Not with you. Hands off, lady."
Maybe the Spy would have let it slide, had he not seen her face after the Scout's brush-off. Her eyes narrowed, pupils shrunk. Her lips were curled back, a growl sliding into a smile. She caught the Spy watching her, but said nothing.
She changed.
The Spy was a man of the world, and he had seen many kinds of people. People with all sorts of flaws. Ignorance, timidness, hatred, vulgarity—all issues, all kinds, everywhere. One of the worst of the lot—the ones that threatened him the most—were scorned admirers. They always had such sympathetic motives, the rejected ones. Who doesn't want their affections returned? But this one kind—this obsessive, possessive, romantic kind—they'd never stop.
And that was the problem. Perfumed letters turned into death threats. Bouquets became barbed wire and nets. A warm hand would reach for a cold gun. That sympathetic, but selfish mentality would spur them on. If no one loved them, they'd love no one. If they weren't given what they wanted, they'd go and get it. It was a deadly mantra.
Love wasn't an earned reward to them. It was sustenance. Like starving dogs, they'd bite at any meat they could get.
The situation with Dixie worsened. It started with a string of unethical curses against the opposite team. That led to more show-boating, more inflamed rage. Everything became more enthusiastic with her. Every victory was sweeter, every loss more bitter. Constant touching led to hugging, every teammate frozen with her embrace. Nobody was sure how to handle it. If they reciprocated, she might call it sexual harassment. When they didn't, she muttered and walked away, the awful curses now folding back onto her own teammates. Her love and anger went all directions, unbound by team lines.
Dixie was going to do something awful to them, and the Spy had to stop it.
The Frenchman wondered what he needed to do. He couldn't think of an ethical solution. Wooing her was out of the question. He had other women on his mind, and he didn't want to be dragged into whatever crazy clutter was going on in her brain. He could talk the Medic into drugging her for a few days, but that would be hard to sneak into her food. Besides, her rage was useful in battle. Shipping her back to wherever she came from was simply too expensive. He couldn't kill her, either. Not with that machine regenerating her after every death.
Well, perhaps he could. He just had to get her out of the machine.
There was one man to talk to about the respawn generator—the Engineer. It was for the best that the Engineer was the controller of the machine. He was even tempered, rarely wrathful. That was why talking him into his assassination plan was an unholy pain in the ass. Sure, the Spy could have talked to him when he wasn't busy working, but it was hard to find a time where the Engineer wasn't nose-deep in his work or accompanied by other teammates.
"Ya want to do what now? Are ya crazy?" The Engineer threw his safety goggles back, placing his tools on the work bench.
The Spy crossed his arms. "You cannot deny zhis. She has put us in danger."
The Engineer frowned. "Only durin' battle. Not like she can do anything to harm us, anyway. Not with the machine up and runnin'."
"Say you forget to lock ze server room up one day. Say one of us is on her chopping block." The Spy paced around the Engineer. "You do not zhink zhat she wouldn't pull the plug on one of us?"
"Look, we all have our bad days. Give her some time. She'll come around." The Engineer had enough of the Spy's plotting. "Now, get outta here before I drop a wrench on ya."
It didn't take long for the Engineer to see things the Spy's way. All it took was a kiss.
It had been at suppertime on a Friday night. The day had been hard fought, but the Spy's team was ahead. Of more importance to her, Dixie had been, as she saw it, saved by the Sniper. He put no big fuss into it. All he'd done was shoot the enemy Soldier, Demoman, and Heavy that had targeted her. He'd missed the enemy Sniper the first time, but his doppelganger failed to hit Dixie as well. After a quick reload, the Sniper brought his head count to four. All to protect her while she was capturing a point. She was so happy, so grateful. So, while she was busy passing the green beans around the table, she had leaned over and kissed the Sniper on the cheek.
The Spy thought it was strange, but he let the incident slide. After all, the Sniper hadn't made a fuss about it. The others hooted a little bit, laughing at the scene, but he said nothing. He just ate his supper and left. Perhaps restraint was one of those so-called professional traits that the Sniper claimed to have. Then again, he was quiet during the entire meal, never talking afterwards. Stewing. The Spy might have forgotten about the entire thing, had he not stepped outside to take in a quick smoking break. Not that they weren't allowed to smoke inside the base. He wanted some cool, fresh air while his filled his lungs with tobacco.
That was when he happened upon Dixie and the Sniper tangled behind the Aussie's Land Rover.
She was on her toes, her lips smashed into the Sniper's face. One of her hands was on the back of his head, fingers laced in dark, thick hair. The other was on the small of his back, pulling him closer into her embrace. She had her eyes closed, eyebrows furrowed in the intensity of her kiss. So did he, but clearly for another reason. His body language gave him away. He was leaning away from her, back pushed as far away as it would go. His arms were straight as lances, locked in place. She was trying to pull him down, prying his back away from the van. It was after a moment of shock and embarrassment that the Sniper snapped. With one motion, he hooked his hands under her arms and pushed her away.
She reached for his face once more.
He shoved her again.
The Spy activated his cloak, approaching the duo and finding a safe place to hide. Behind the ammunition crates would do. This was something he needed to monitor. He extinguished his cigarette, knowing the smoke would give him away. Neither of the two realized his was there. Their bickering hid his movements.
Dixie was indignant. Her eyes flashed in the dark night. "I was only trying to thank you, you uncivilized barbarian!"
The Sniper's voice was panicked, an octave higher than usual. "Pardon me, but I think just sayin' thanks would be enough. Ya don't need to jam yer tongue down the mouth of every man that saves your life!"
"You dog!" She cut off his escape route, forcing him closer to where the Spy was hiding. She was at his throat, grabbing him by the collars of shirt. "I would have expected such an attitude from the others, but you? I thought you saw me as an equal. I thought you respected me."
The Sniper's temper frayed. "Respect? Ya think respect is pinnin' me outside 'a my van and havin' a go at me?" He lowered his gaze, blue irises burning. "'Till you learn ta keep yer claws to yerself, you're nothin' more to me than a shrew in heat."
Dixie tore into the Sniper, her overflowing anger hotter than lava. She struck him in the jaw with a closed fist, the crack slamming the Sniper into the side of his Land Rover. The woman grabbed him by the throat, taking advantage of the dazing blow she threw. They were on the ground within seconds, Dixie burying the Sniper's face into gravel. He bucked her once, rolling away from the woman's limbs. He didn't get far before she snatched him by the shirt again, ripping the stitching down his chest. The Spy watched the display, cowed by the explosion of tempers. He wasn't one for leaping into brawls.
He changed his mind when Dixie jumped on top of the Sniper once more, pinning him face-first to the ground. Her actions were puzzling, going from extreme violence to amorous in seconds. The Sniper was struggling to gain control of his arms, fighting with her hands as she dug into her belt. Those cuffs snapped around his wrist like lightning, keeping his hands pinned together behind his back. She flipped him over, legs wrapping around his waist. Her lips were at his collarbone, a hot tongue teasing blood from scratches. There was an abundance of swearing, the Sniper trying to bite her. She pushed forward, teeth at his neck and below his jaw, red welts following her path. No, this was not normal fighting.
The Spy broke from his hiding place, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. "Ahem."
The fighting, if it could be called that, stopped immediately. Dixie was not amused with the interruption, the corners of her lips snarled. The Sniper didn't move, frozen with embarrassment. Both were panting, breath labored by the struggle. The Spy kept calm, forcing his face to keep expressionless. Enough was enough.
"I would suggest you go inside." The Spy kept calm, lighting another cigarette. His level of intimidation was never a physical, forceful thing. It was always there in his personality, a quiet flood pushing against the minds of those who opposed him.
Dixie gave up, blowing a twisted curl out of her face. Even a strong woman like her might not win in a fight against two well-trained mercenaries, even with one in handcuffs. Her nostrils flared hot air into the night. She dismounted the Sniper, leaving without any final blows. The Spy waited until she disappeared inside the barracks, then addressed the mortified Sniper lying at his feet. He pulled the Australian upright, then retrieved his balisong. With a little fiddling, he popped the cuffs open.
The Spy and the Sniper didn't discuss what happened. One was ashamed, the other humiliated. No need to analyze that. The Frenchman pulled another cigarette from his box, placing it at corner of the Sniper's mouth. He set the tip aflame, the glow a warm orange in the dark night. They sat together and smoked, neither speaking until their cigarettes had been burned to the filter.
"If you wish to zhank me, you will talk to the Engineer this night." The Spy ground the last of his cigarette into the gravel. "Show him what she did. Tell him to remove her from ze system."
The Sniper did as he asked, limping towards the garage and nursing both his spine and his pride. When he returned, the Engineer came as well. The short man was hesitant, his fingers fidgeting. Between his digits was a paper-thin card. The Spy reached for it, but the Engineer pulled back ever so slightly. His eyes were on the ground, his brain stuck in its processes. The last throes of a moral war were raging in his head. He gave one last look at the slash across the Sniper's chest, then gave in.
The Engineer's voice was dark, growling. "Don't care how you do it."
Of course, what the Engineer had neglected to tell the Spy was that the Administrator got a daily print out of battle statistics. When Dixie's card went missing, so did her data for Friday. Later that evening, after retiring to his room, the Spy's phone rang. He thought about letting it go, but he decided to pick up. He never knew when he was going to get an outside job. When he picked the phone off its cradle and placed it to his ear, his blood ran cold.
"The Engineer told me what you are planning to do."
The Spy scowled. He wanted to blame the Texan, but he could see why he'd caved. The Administrator was not a woman that could be lied to. She always found out the truth, whether or not somebody wanted her to know. He could hang up and abscond, but there was no place he could run that the Administrator couldn't find him. It was better to confess. "What of it?"
Her voice was tinny, cool through the receiver. "Do it."
Oh. The Spy hadn't expected this. "I did not zhink you would want me to."
"Your naivety amuses me." There was a pause as the Administrator collected her thoughts. "I do not tolerate this. Not for her, not for any of you. I've got a war to run here, dammit. If you cowards are going to fail me and fight each other, it had better not be because of your hormones."
The Spy raised an eyebrow. She was taking this personally. "As you wish."
The line clicked. The Administrator never had much to say to her men. He wondered about her words for a moment, lying reclined in his bed. They weighed heavy on his mind. He tried to fall to sleep, but after forty-five minutes, he found himself still awake. He hated putting things off. Better to do it now.
He grabbed his balisong, the only weapon he would truly need. He stepped back out of his room. The halls were dark, the only light coming from the stars and the moon. The Spy crept through the halls, rolling his feet to hide his presence. Dixie's room was at the end of the hallway, the door slightly ajar.
Dixie's room was unlike any woman's bedroom he'd ever been in. Most women had elements of comfort in their rooms. Soft comforters, posters, fake flowers. Some bit of coziness. For as vain as she was about her appearance, she was not one to please others with the state of her habitat. There was a gun rack, but it was half-filled. The rest of the weapons were strewn about wherever she had decided to put them. A ratty television set flickered in the night, static buzzing and projecting his shadow onto the walls. Piles of newspapers sat on top of every surface, all about guns and investigations. The Spy's eyes drifted across several of them. One from Minneapolis. Another from Des Moines. Three from Chicago. Lincoln, St. Louis, Oklahoma City. All featuring stories about murders, policemen gunned down in their sleep, all ballistics tests leading back to an M16.
Who had the Administrator hired?
The Spy turned his attention to Dixie's bed. There was a pile of sheets, a bulge forming in the center. He investigated the bed. No. She wasn't there. Where was she at this time of night?
"What are you doing in my room?"
Oh. She'd been to the shower. The Spy felt like thwacking himself in the head. How unprofessional of him to not check for hygiene products. There was a tightness around his neck, like a mouse trap had snapped around his throat. She shut the door behind her, locking the knob.
The Spy drew his balisong. "I would not step any closer, if I were you."
"Now, now. Put that away." She unwrapped the towel around her body. The sheen from the television gave her an eerie gray glow, light speckling over contours and bumps. Dixie approached the Spy, unafraid of his tool. "All I need from you is an apology."
Maybe he was finally growing tired. He could have been a little frightened. Hell, he might have been a smidge aroused. Whatever happened, he'd failed to catch her hands. She grabbed him by his knife-wielding arm, locking him at the elbow. With a solid flip, she spun the Spy around, pinning him to her bed. Iron clacking sealed his wrists, metal putting his arms out of action. She pulled the knife from him, folding it shut and leaving it on top of the dresser next to her bed. That woman was a fast little bitch.
Dixie turned him around, settling on top of him with the same smug smile he'd seen on her face earlier tonight. She pressed down into him, the tips of her breasts teasing at the fabric covering his chest. Emotions mixed and churned, actions normally pleasurable to the Spy becoming barbed weapons. He struggled to get away from her, but her legs were tight, hugging his hips like boa constrictors. She lowered her head to the Spy's chest, then began fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, her tongue sliding them free.
The Spy's eyes narrowed. "Don't do zhis."
"Why not?" Dixie was not relenting. She took the front of his shirt away, pulling it aside with her teeth. She ran that tongue of hers across his chest, dragging down towards his belly button and his left ilium. The heat from her tongue triggered something in his gut. He shuddered, nerves firing along his hips.
He had to regain control. The Spy squirmed away from her, digging his feet into her bed. "I don't want zhis. Zhat is reason enough."
Dixie snorted at his rebuttal. "Who is going to believe you? Besides, your body is saying something else." She swirled along the dusty rose-colored flushes on his chest, stopping a moment to bite at his left nipple. A gasp escaped his throat, his right leg twitching in a surprise reaction. No, no, no. He had better control of himself than this.
The Spy glanced away as Dixie chewed on his earlobe. This gal was all over the place. It helped to keep his mind calm. He cursed at her in his native tongue, but she didn't know what he'd said. Frankly, she didn't care. She slipped her tongue into his mouth. Her taste was strange, part minty fresh and part salty. Toothpaste and sweat. Hopefully, just his and not the Sniper's, too. His snarkiness was keeping him from completely losing his mind to terror and carnal desires.
As Dixie continued exploring what dental work the Spy had done, the Frenchman's mind whirled. Half of him was preparing a train to leave the station. The other half was looking for any immediate weapons he could use to kill the wench in one blow, sans hands. He could try kicking her out the window, but that was going to take a lot of maneuvering. Maybe throw her at the television. No, no, too much coordination was necessary. His legs were turning into gelatin. She was moving back down his body, finding the amused bump in his trousers.
She smiled, certain that she was victorious. "See? Just give up. You like it." Dixie leaned closer, whispering into his navel like it was a microphone. "You like me."
That was it. She was at the right height. The Spy threw every ounce of strength into his legs, bucking her off his body. She was unprepared for the retaliation, having grown too comfortable with the body beneath her legs. Whumph! Her head cracked into the corner of her dresser. She toppled into the bed, the life instantly gone from her body. Blood stained the dresser, a gouge of hair and bone remaining on its edge.
The Spy did what he should have done in the first place. He called for help.
Nobody gave him crap about why he was mostly naked in Dixie's room. None of them asked. If anything, the Scout, the Sniper and the Engineer empathized with what had happened to him. They saw his balisong on her dresser and knew what he was intending to do all along. The Soldier thought it was an underhanded attack, but he wasn't disappointed that Dixie was gone, either. She had been a burden to all of them. They were glad to see her go.
The Soldier helped the Spy bury Dixie in Harvest. It was about an hour's drive from the barracks, hidden in the remnants of a ghost town. Nobody poked their heads around there, and more importantly, no cops ever came around. The burial was relatively quick, few words spoken. Perhaps it had been better for her to have gone this way. If the papers she collected implied anything, she may have been a wanted criminal. Not a cop. A cop killer.
Still, the Spy stopped to wonder what he had done. He didn't feel completely sorry that he killed Dixie. Yet, there was some lingering regret. Perhaps he could have calmed her down, brought her to the Medic to get a prescription. Maybe he should have talked with her to begin with. It was hard to say. He was not an emotional man, but he wasn't completely without pity.
Then again, if he talked to her, she might have confused his concern for love. If the Spy was selfish about anything, it was who had the rights to his heart.
/***/
Author's Note
I originally posted this on TF2Chan last October. I thought about putting it on for quite a while, but I was very apprehensive about it. This is probably the most risqué thing I have written, particularly because there is a lot of sexual violence in it. I cleaned up the language, but that's about it.
It should not surprise you that I don't particularly like tenth class or female class fics. Not that it couldn't work, but most have left a bad taste in my mouth. (If your goal is to have a female representative screw a character, why not channel Miss Pauling or the Administrator?) Everyone's probably bitched one way or another on the subject, so I'll curtail my complaints.
I'm sorry if you've been offended, particularly if you have written a tenth or female class fic. I am not sorry, however, if you were scared.
What would Dixie's code name have been? Probably the Rapid (as in 'Rapid Assault Gal' or 'Rapid Weapons Gal').
Edit: I decided to clean up some of the language in this story. A vigilant reader helped me pinpoint misogynistic language, as well as to doctor some dialogue. I should have been more careful and kind. Thank you again, Anon.