The plug woke her painfully when she rolled over, well after her set alarm. She supposed that the Sniper had probably turned it off. He was gone, taking the scraps of bra with him. In the bathroom, she pushed the plug out and sighed in relief, taking a long hot shower that stung on several vicious bite marks. She peered at her back in the mirror, seeing the stripes that trailed down her ass and thighs. In the morning light, they looked terrible. Her cunt and ass ached gently as she dressed and walked to the kitchen, each step reminding her of the previous night and the fact that she hadn't had the last orgasm—the clock set her to hurrying.
The Cook was glad she had gotten up early enough to have some privacy. Her good mood was fragile, and she had no idea how she'd react to seeing any of them the next morning. When she rounded the corner to enter the kitchen, she came to a sudden halt, anxiety making her heart thump in her chest. The Medic turned from his perch on a stool he'd dragged into the kitchen, pulling a mug from his lips.
"They did not bring you. I did not know if you were well."
The morning light picked out the threads of silver in his hair, and his sleepless eyes were bagged. The lines next to his mouth were pronounced, and she realized that he had been up and worried that she was being hurt, that he seemed to care. She was struck again by the fact that he was a handsome man, pleasantly rumpled—sleep pants, slippers, and a t shirt took a face that could have been forbidding and made it pleasant, even somewhat fatherly. He wore glasses, and had made himself coffee while he waited, obviously familiar with a French Press and grinding his own coffee.
She blinked. Fatherly. What in the world had possessed her to have that thought? Perhaps it was their age difference. Or perhaps it was the fact that he seemed to feel responsible for her, and his protective behavior of the previous night—for a man who had come in the previous day in bloody, filthy clothing, he appeared to be incredibly kind. The Cook couldn't sense any judgment in him, merely preoccupied worry, and was not as embarrassed as she'd expected to be by having to see any of them after the previous night.
"I'm fine," she said. "Sore, but fine."
"Come with me." He stood up, gesturing at her with the hand without the mug, and walked to the kitchen door.
"I have to make breakfast." The Cook picked up her apron and started to tie it on.
"Please. Come with me." His tone alternated command and pleading.
She put the apron down and sighed. At least, she thought, he cares enough to check on me. Might as well let him.
"All right, she said. "But make it fast."
The surgery was five doors down from the kitchen and dining room. The Medic insisted that the Cook strip down, and hissed appreciatively at the bruises as she turned in front of him, the same distance making her comfortable stripping down and letting him examine her closely. She could sense nothing from him but professional curiosity and the same, abstracted concern that made a patient confess easily to their doctor. She answered his few questions and permitted him to poke the various cuts and bruises.
After the exam, he applied antibiotic cream to the cut between her breasts and asked how much she ached. The Cook flushed up to her hairline, and the Medic gave her aspirin and reminded her she didn't have to stay. His eyes lingered on the cut after she'd dressed.
She wondered what he was thinking.
He shooed her out of the room, letting her go back to the kitchen. When she left, he sighed heavily and leaned against the wall. One hand reached down and he adjusted himself, counting to ten in German, Russian, French, and Spanish, waiting for his erection to go down—a combination of nudity, bruises, and that delicious cut between her breasts. It was a good day, he thought with mild amusement and chagrin, to wear tight briefs and loose pants. Mein gott, she's easy to get naked. Helen, what did you send us?
Breakfast was awkward. The Scout couldn't stop smirking, the Spy and Sniper were relaxed to the point of silence, and both the Engineer and Demo couldn't make eye contact with her over the table. The Medic's perennially distracted air made him seem as if he were barely in the room, and the Heavy was surly. The Pyro was quiet, quickly taking the sugar for the coffee and overfilling his cup before drinking it. The Soldier sat at the head of the table and simply stared at her, open hunger on his face.
The Cook looked around and, embarrassed, decided to eat in the kitchen. The Sniper stopped her with a hand on her thigh as she tried to walk past him.
"Do sit. You look a little peaky, Birdie, like you had a rough night. Wouldn't want you to pass out before dinner." He grinned nastily at her over the edge of his cup. "You have such a long day ahead of you."
"You…you.…" The Cook clenched her fists around the plate in her hand, picturing breaking it over his head.
"Don't make me tell stories around the table. I'd imagine, though, that everyone else will know soon enough." The Sniper put his cup down with a satisfied smirk and started to eat his eggs one-handed, the hand on her thighs creeping around to cup her ass.
"I may be marginally okay with the situation, but I won't be teased about it." She stepped forward suddenly, pulling herself away from the Sniper's hand, the warmth of it seeming to cling to her skin. Her body remembered the previous night, and was suddenly both fully awake and hungry to be touched.
"Pity," the Spy said, from across the table. "You blush so nicely when embarrassed."
The Cook made a growling noise in the back of her throat. She wasn't sure who she hated more—herself for reacting, or the room full of men so anxious to treat her like a sex object. She wanted to believe it was just loneliness. It had been a full year and change since she'd slept with anyone. Or perhaps it was simply her be-damned masochism rearing its ugly and entirely unwanted head. But if she were honest with herself, she had gone along with what they had done willingly enough. She'd even enjoyed some of it. No, she thought, let's be honest. I enjoyed the whole damn thing. Christ, I have hideous taste in men. What the hell is wrong with me? She threw her plate at the sink in the kitchen from the door, shattering it against the wall, and stomped out.
The Engineer watched her go with a worried expression on his face, lines forming between his eyes beneath his pushed-up goggles. He turned back to the table. "You bastards are going to make her leave if you keep it up." The Engineer scowled at both Sniper and Spy over his toast. "She does have the right to some dignity."
"Oh yes," the Spy drawled, his fork twirling loosely on his plate. "And she sheds it most beautifully." In the ensuing silence, he smiled smugly at the Engineer, who immediately flushed with anger.
"Jesus, you're an asshole," the Engineer said, finally looking down at his plate. There were times when he really hated that man—the smug way the Spy assumed he could manipulate everyone, that he could needle everyone with impunity. And the nasty little machines both spies carried, those sappers, made him want to beat the man's head in with a wrench any time he saw him. If he had known they were going to keep adapting his design and keep the plans from him, he would never have drafted the original.
"What did you do last night?" The Scout bounced in his chair, restlessly burning off the caffeine from the soda cans in front of his plate. "'Cause we heard her yelling for hours."
"Let us say that she is responsive, shall we?" The Spy took a sip of his coffee. "Most responsive." He had to admit he enjoyed teasing them all this way—having had something they did not pleased him, as did most games he could play with power. Introducing the woman to the base gave his various little plans all sorts of new variables. A little teasing, in the mean time, was enjoyable. The more vanilla team members were fun to tease, and he knew how much most of them needed to get laid. It had been so boring.
The Sniper merely smiled, his canines flashing over his lower lip. "She'll be all right." And she would, he thought—she may have been in denial of some of the finer points of her own nature, but that little thing she'd done, snapping her teeth at them, had been incredibly arousing. The Spy may have his little formal games, but the Sniper found himself fantasizing about chasing her through the moonlight, about running her down and rutting her as she snapped and snarled. The fact that it apparently annoyed the stuffy Engineer was, in his opinion, one of the many bonuses of getting there first.
"We may be sadists," the Medic tipped his head at Spy and Sniper, "and psychopaths," he tipped his head at the room, "but if we do not play carefully with our toys, we will lose them." The Medic reminded himself as much as the rest of the men. While she'd submitted willingly enough to an examination that morning, she had been nervous, even ashamed, and pushing her too far would make her seal herself up in her room every night. The Spy and Sniper's poor self-control continued, even decades later, to shock him. He expected as much from the Americans, but those two worried him. Both men often seemed to snarl at each other like animals in a cage.
The Demo speared an egg. "Be nice to the lassie. She doesn't have to put up with us."
"Indeed, but I assure you it holds a certain amount of attraction for her." The Spy lit a cigarette. "Near immortality, money, and an endless supply of interested partners... That, gentlemen, is a powerful incentive." And, he added in the silence of his own mind, her reactions tell me she's never had the chance to explore her own sexuality. That'll keep her coming back for much longer than money might. Pleasure is a better motivation than abstractions.
The Demo rolled his eyes. "Have yeh tried making it enjoyable fer the lassie, yeh evil bastard? She will nae stay if it isn't." Sometimes, he wondered where his teammates had been raised, that they were so damn bad at wooing women and so demanding. He could just see the Spy as a bratty little boy—no doubt he'd been spoiled. The Sniper, he thought, was obviously raised by wolves.
"We enjoy ourselves in our own ways." The Spy breathed out a smoky mouthful. "And which of us will be next?"
"I'm out," said Scout, making a face. "I know what you two do to women and I can't stand fucking a woman who looks beat on. I'll do this thing later."
"I'm out, too. I don't mind a little rough, but you two leave a mess." The Engineer scratched his chin. "I'd like to get the chance for a little touch after the yelling."
The Medic looked at Heavy, wondering what his partner was thinking. "I would not mind."
"I know, Doctor." The Heavy gave him a half-smile, then looked down at his plate, refusing to make eye contact. The Medic winced and sighed. He knew the Heavy had no particular love for sex with women, and was humoring him. Not for the first time, he wished he were gayer or straighter, that his desires were less fluid and that he could avoid the hurt silence he knew was coming between them.
The Spy, watching him, could see the tension, the effort the Heavy was putting into even contemplating sex around a woman, let alone having sex with the woman. But he would do it, the Spy decided, just like he would do any number of other things to please the Medic. The Medic, the Spy could tell, had his own plans for the woman. The distracted air he had adopted may have fooled her—she hadn't even looked at the man when she walked in from the kitchen—but the Spy had spent too much time watching the lot of them not to recognize the slowly mounting tension in the Medic's expression. He was briefly sorry he couldn't get along with him. It was obvious they had quite a bit in common, at least in bed, and he knew the Medic was flexible enough to appreciate men.
The Pyro cleared his throat. "I'd share with you two."
The Spy's eyebrows raised at that. The Pyro rarely spoke, preferring silence, or a grunt and gesture to speech. The Spy had never heard the Pyro speak about women, wasn't sure he'd even want to spend any time having sex. Repeatedly volunteering to be in an orgy with the Medic and reluctant Heavy was completely out of character for the man. The Spy's eyes narrowed and he smoothed his hair with a free hand, considering the smaller, scarred man staring at the Medic—was the Pyro even capable of sex? The visible scarring on his body was extensive. The Spy looked the man over slowly. The Pyro's unruly bed head was half stuck to his scalp, and half out in spikes, and as he waited for the Medic to answer, his unmarked hand crept over to the scars on his forearm. He scratched them, absently, with a rasping sound, focused on the Medic.
It was a pity, the Spy thought, that the man was so heavily scarred. The unscarred half of his body was quite handsome—a mix, the Spy thought, of white and some East Asian country. The hair on the Pyro's head was the particular soft black of burnt wood. His skin was a pleasant mixture of golden cream, where it hadn't burned to palest purple, pink, and white, swirling across his neck, arm, the visible edges of his chest, and the sides of his face. The Spy was briefly and unpleasantly reminded of Vietnam and napalm, and shuddered.
After a moment, the Medic answered. "Very well. You can come with us."
The Demo put his head in his hands and slid head and arms down onto the table. From his folded arms, he repeated himself. "Ask the damn lassie. Ask her what she wants."
The Soldier watched them all, hands clenched on the table. "She deserves the chance to pick."
The Sniper looked up. "She picked. And she'll pick again. Trust me."
The Spy lit his morning cigarette and considered them as a tableau. He'd spent decades watching these men over the table, in the field, while they thought they were alone—the dynamics at the table had shifted now that someone new had been introduced. He found himself wondering what the changes meant to all the little, separate kingdoms they lived in.
He realized he was eager to find out.