The Medic came at a run, wearing a pair of pajama pants and the rig for the medigun. The Heavy came behind him, wearing the sheet as a toga. The Pyro sat, cross-legged, on the bed, the Cook's head in his lap, her red hair pooled around her. Her face was milk-pale, and angry, raised burns leaked a clear fluid onto her blanket. The clear imprint of hands around her neck was blue purple, and several other bluish bruises spread their fingers across her chest.
The Pyro turned calm eyes to the Medic. "Don't worry, she's not dead."
The Medic swore fluently in German for some time and flicked the gun on. The warm, red beam faded the burns from her arms and the bruises from her neck and chest. She took a deeper breath, still unconscious. "I should have known better," the Medic snarled. He turned to the Soldier. "I expect the Pyro to be himself. But you!"
The Soldier flinched under the Medic's enraged glare. The Medic carefully put the medigun down and walked to the bed. "Let me have her, Pyro."
The Pyro looked up at him calmly. "No. This time I'm not leaving, and neither is she. You can wake her up, but you can't have her."
The Medic stopped, astounded, as the Pyro continued. "And if you have Heavy hold me down to tranquilize me, I'll resist." He smiled, nastily. "You'll win, but it'll cost you."
"Why," the Medic asked, tone pleading. "Do you not understand that you will terrify her? Do you not understand that she will not want to see you when she wakes?"
The Pyro looked at him. "We'll see when she wakes up. Wake her up."
The Medic's mouth firmed into a pale line and he spoke to the Heavy in Russian. The Heavy nodded, and left quickly. The Medic approached the bed slowly, arms in the air. "I'm going to sit down and check on her. Ist gut?" When the Pyro said nothing, he crouched down by the edge of the bed, checking her pulse from the fat vein in her wrist and running a quick hand over her throat and the skin of her shoulders.
"Well, at least there appears to be no permanent damage."
The Heavy came back with a small kit, in his own pajama pants, and stood behind the Pyro.
"You can do it," the Pyro repeated. "But it will cost you." He placed the lighter down gently next to his thigh.
The Medic opened the kit, removing a single plastic ampoule that he broke under the Cook's nose. She turned her head, trying to get away from it, and seconds later blinked into awareness with a startled grunt. She looked around, eyes rolling wildly and finally settling on the Pyro's head above hers.
"I see," she whispered, then, realizing she could, said, "We've attracted some company."
"Fräulein," the Medic said, "these verrückte männer should not be left alone with you, but the Pyro is insisting. Do you want me to clear the room?"
"You don't have to remove me," the Soldier said quietly. "I'll leave." He started to gather his clothes, leaving the buttons strewn across the room.
The Cook looked at the Medic, eyes narrowed. "Is it only safe when you hurt me?"
He paled, then glared at her. "I have already done something I regret because of anger. Are you trying to goad me into something more?"
Her laugh was still rusty, as if something in her throat had been permanently damaged. "I can't make you do shit. I'm grateful you healed me. Now get the hell out."
The Medic took a sharp breath, clawed hands reaching, and she stared at him levelly. He snarled and stood, spinning on his heel. The Heavy appeared to be trying not to laugh as he followed his lover out. The Soldier started after them, and the Cook stopped him. "Not after that, you don't," she said, rage trembling in her voice. "You have to come hold me, now."
He turned back toward the bed reluctantly and laid his clothes in a heap by it, then sat on the very edge of the bed.
The Pyro shifted his legs under her head. "What should we do for you, pretty Cook?"
The tremor in her voice grew, leaving it trembling on the edge of tears. "I should make you both spend the rest of the night eating me out, but I really want to be held." She sat up carefully, then put herself in the middle of her bed. "I don't care who takes which side, but you're going to come here, hold me, and talk to me. We can all be fucked up together."
The Soldier winced. After a tense moment, the Soldier squirmed between the Cook and the wall, and the Pyro lay in front of her, looking her in the face. The Soldier raised an arm, looking over her shoulder at the Pyro, who shrugged.
"Pick something," the Pyro said to him. "I don't care if I touch you."
The Soldier wrapped an arm stiffly around her waist and the Pyro snuggled into them both, stroking the Cook's face. After a few minutes she said. "I won't ask how many of us had happy childhoods."
The Pyro's hand stilled and the Soldier tensed further. She continued. "I won't even ask what this little war has been doing to you." Both men stopped breathing. "But I do have a question: how did you both fight free of that undertow?"
"Undertow?" The Soldier's voice was almost a whisper.
"Maybe that's my word for it," she said. "That darkness. The… like you're drowning."
"Burning," the Pyro said. "Like being consumed."
The Soldier stayed silent. She nudged him with her elbow, gently, and he finally answered. "Like acid. Like being eaten away from the inside out, until you're hollow."
"How did either of you escape it?"
The Pyro looked at her. "Into the fire, until fire is all there is and I am gone, and then there is only pain and the memory of the flame."
The Soldier's voice whispered behind her. "Until there is no thought, just being faster than the man in front of you. Until there is no memory, just your heart heaving in your chest and the other man laying dead at your feet. Until you are dead, and gone, and free."
Her eyes closed. "Until I have become empty. Until desire and pain have passed through me like a tide, taking memory and grief and leaving nothing."
They clung to each other for a moment, their memories filling the space around them. She broke the silence. "Who—"
The Pyro looked at her, the skin under his eyes shivering. "They don't check on you. No one wants you and no one checks on you. They just leave you with the first person to volunteer."
"He burned," she said.
"Yes," the Pyro said. "He burned." His arms tightened. "He burned and I watched until the flames were gone, feeding them until he was ash."
The Cook reached out for the Pyro, drawing him closer, and he touched his forehead to hers. The Soldier reached past her, laying a tentative hand on the Pyro's arm. "The world was a little cleaner afterward, Py." When the Pyro didn't push his hand away, he curled it gently around the Pyro's arm, cuddling them both closer.
"I... I wish I had been there," the Soldier said quietly. "I wish I had seen my father die. When they told me, I couldn't cry. I wasn't even sure I was sad. I just put my gear down and went for a walk. I kept walking the perimeter over and over until they held me down and sedated me."
The Pyro reached out gently for the Soldier, wrapping an arm around him. "I hate it when they do that."
She laughed once, bitterly, and said nothing. The Pyro kissed her forehead once, gently, before speaking. "I let the Doctor do it sometimes because it lets me stop thinking. Because it makes him feel better."
She tilted her head up and the Pyro returned to kiss her lips, at first gently, then harder, driving a small moan from her with tongue and lips and teeth.
"That's it for you, Rosie," the Soldier said, "isn't it? You're fucking for comfort."
She leaned back slightly, breaking the kiss. "Sometimes for comfort, sometimes to stop thinking, sometimes for affection, sometimes for fun. Sometimes," she whispered, "because I care."
The Pyro looked at them both with a sad little smile. "Isn't that what we learn how to do? That's what we get used for, and it's what we learn how to do."
The Cook flinched, and he sighed. "I don't always understand, Pretty Cook. There are parts of me that just…" It was silent for a moment. "I know what people think of me," the Pyro said, inchoate frustration and longing in his voice. "I can't tell them what they need to hear. But I can fuck them and make them happy, if they'll let me close enough."
She looked at him, grief and old guilt eating away at her face. The Pyro looked back, the same guilt and old grief on his. "Pretty Cook, this is how I can talk to you." He kissed her, gently waiting for her lips to respond, and when they did he smiled into them. He pulled back. "I know this language. You do too, don't you?"
The first tear spilled from her eyes and the Pyro reached out and licked it delicately from her cheek. "Let me talk to you," he said. "Let me understand someone. Stay with us."
"I don't…. I can't stay," she whispered. "Everyone wants me to stay, but this is a temporary contract and I can't stay."
"I think you will," the Soldier said, his voice full of shared memory. "I think you'll stay because we understand you." His hand drifted lower, fingers trailing slowly across the skin of her hip. "You'll stay because you won't find us anywhere else, because we'll let you be who you are without trying to make you someone else. Rosie, we may be the only people on base who will let you be yourself."
His fingers wormed between her legs, dipping inside her. "Because we will never let you get bored, and you'll never have to run away."
Her spine arched and the Pyro put a hand on her chin, capturing it and leaning in to continue the kiss.
In her ear, the Soldier said, "Because you can care about us. Because you are just as broken as we are." He bit her neck gently, then touched his lips to her ears. "Because it means you won't be alone."
The Pyro reached out for a breast without breaking the kiss, his fingers kneading hard enough to bring another flow of prickling tears to her closed eyes. The Soldier grunted and lifted her leg, scooting down slightly so that he could slide the tip of himself into her. The Pyro looked down, and seeing what the Soldier was doing, smiled.
"We can make you happy, Pretty Cook. Let us make you happy." He leaned in, pressing his warm skin to hers, and reached down between her legs, stroking, fingers tracing the lips the Soldier slid between and gently thrumming the clit atop them. She shook and kept crying, her face slowly flushing and nipples tightening. "Let us make you happy, Pretty Cook." The Pyro reached for the back of her neck, still stroking, and pressed his face to hers. "We won't leave you lonely." He leaned forward, biting at the side of her neck in small, sharp nibbles.
"Let go, Rosie," the Soldier said. "Let go and be yourself."
Her mouth fell open and she took a sobbing breath, the tension of months of being pushed and shaped breaking over her and stripping the flesh away, leaving the raw wires of her body screaming into the air.
"Let it out, Pretty Cook," the Pyro whispered. "Let us give you something."
The Cook reached out for the Pyro, cuddling him to her, and the Soldier tightened his arm. The Pyro leaned back slightly and went back to kissing her, the warm salt from her tears mixing in their mouths. She went limp between them, letting them rock her closer and closer to that shining point.
"That's it, Rosie," the Soldier said breathlessly in her ear.
Closer, closer, her mind emptying but for the feel of skin on hers, the feel of their bodies pressed against hers, a shimmering pool of warmth filling like a cup. The Pyro's fingers became rough, flicking hard and harder and she made a pained whimper into his mouth. The pool spilled out with her breath into a heat that passed through her in a warm wave and she stopped breathing, utterly limp. The Soldier made a noise in the back of his throat and bunched up to fuck her harder, mashing her body into the Pyro, who laughed, a childlike sound of unfettered joy.
"Breathe, Rosie," the Soldier panted. "Breathe."
The Pyro bit her tongue, and she took a single, gulping gasp of air. His face was radiant, a smile that had nothing of his guarded worry in it, nothing but the joy of being able to be close to someone else. "Better, pretty Cook?"
She smiled, her eyes still leaking tears. "Better."
The Soldier stilled and started to squirm so he could pull himself out of her.
"Please don't go," she said. "Just… stay there."
"I'm eventually going to fall out, Rosie-girl."
"I don't care, I just want…."
He put her leg down gently atop its mate and stayed inside her, pressed close against her body.
She looked at the Pyro. "Come up, some."
The Pyro blinked, then smiled, and scooted up until he was propped on his side.
"Scoot down a bit," she said, and the Soldier wrapped an arm around her waist and scooted them both down until she could get the Pyro's cock in her mouth. The Soldier picked her leg back up, pulling it over his hip, and reached between her legs. The Cook reached up for the Pyro with both hands, wrapping one around his hip and the other around the base of his cock, pulling at him gently, trying to tell him with hands and mouth what he had done for her.
"I was thinking, Pretty Cook," the Pyro said, "about your face when I burned you. I was thinking about," his eyes fluttered closed and his hips moved gently, "about the moment before I burned you. About your eyes going wide and the smoke rising from the wire. I was thinking about the flame kissing the wire and your face and knowing that you would burn."
He smiled down at her again. "The beautiful fire kissing the wire and the moment it burned you, the look on your face." His fingers knotted in her hair. "The smell of you burning. I was thinking about the flame and how much I wanted to burn you."
She squeezed the Soldier, who moved faster, watching her head bob. She groaned around the Pyro's cock, vibrating it, and he moaned low, his voice rough.
"Rosie," the Soldier said, "I have another one in me, so I'm going to stop teasing. If you come up on your knees, you can still do what you're doing, and I can get what I want a little better."
She opened her mouth, releasing the Pyro, then pulled herself slowly off the Soldier and came up on her hands and knees. The Pyro sat back, and the Soldier knee-walked behind her, sliding into her with a relieved sigh.
The Pyro knotted his fingers in her hair and brought her head back. "I was thinking," he said softly, "about the taste of your tears and the way your face went red when I burned you. You shook, when I burned you." His voice grew rougher. "I was thinking about the sight of my flame on your skin, about knowing you'll remember me." He bucked up into her mouth. "I was thinking about the flame and your skin and making you faint." The Pyro shuddered. "Fuck, the way you fainted."
Over her head, the Soldier spoke. "The way you went limp when I put my hands around your neck, the way you squeeze me."
"Mmmmm," the Pyro said, "she does squeeze. And she—," his thought was cut off by an inarticulate cry, his whole body twitching.
"Yes, she does," said the Soldier. "She squeezes." His words trailed off in a guttural moan as she clamped down around him, feeling his cock jerk. They froze for a second, eyes closed.
The Pyro sighed and gently tapped the side of her mouth. "Let go, Pretty Cook, and let's get some sleep."
The Soldier slowly slid out of her and went back to laying on his side by the wall. Cuddling in tight, they made room for the Pyro, who turned his back to the Cook and let her wrap an arm around him.
"It's a bit tight, Rosie-girl, but I don't want to go yet. We'll see if I can sleep like this."
She smiled, tired. "I can."
The Pyro shrugged. "We'll see, but I don't want to go."
"Then don't," she murmured. "Stay with me. Both of you, stay with me."
The Soldier put his chin on top of her head and let his arm drift around the Pyro, who stiffened momentarily then let the Soldier hold him.
They fell asleep like that.
When she woke with the alarm, the Pyro was gone. The Soldier had somehow managed to end up with the majority of the bed and was laying half on top of her, face down, snoring quietly in her ear. She tried to squirm out from under him, but he tightened his arm, pulling her back. "Toll for getting out to turn the alarm off is coming back," he rumbled.
"I have to make breakfast." She pushed gently at his shoulder. "Come on, let me turn the alarm off."
He grumbled and let her slide out to turn off the alarm, then grabbed her arm as she passed the bed again and pulled her back in. "I said come back."
The Cook looked at him with a mix of amusement and frustration in her voice. "Breakfast! I have to make breakfast!"
"I'll give you a choice," he said, a predatory gleam in his visible eye. "Here or the kitchen."
She gasped and he chuckled. "Here or the kitchen, Rosie?"
"Would you really…." She trailed off, mouth gaping in shock at the change in his demeanor.
The Soldier rolled over, pulling her on top of him. "Are they going to think I'm any crazier, Rosie? And they know what you like, even if they don't know why. So pick one." He looked at nubs of her nipples. "Exhibitionist or just that eager to get back to fucking?"
"None of your business." She folded her arms over her nipples and grinned teasingly at him.
"Kitchen it is, then." The Soldier sat up, pulling her legs around his waist, and scooted to the edge of the mattress to stand.
She squeaked and smacked his shoulder. "You would not!"
He grinned at her and stood. "Where do you keep your apron?"
"Why," she said slowly, eyes narrowing with a dreadful suspicion.
The Soldier leaned forward to put his lips against her ear and whispered, "splash-guard."
She squeaked. "You son of a bitch, now I know you're joking."
His arms tightened and he chuckled. "Only slightly, Rosie, only slightly. I've been dying to put you on that counter since your second day here. But what I am going to do is get you revved up before I let you leave, so you have something to think about this morning and during the day."
The Cook looked at him. "I think I have a bit of knife practice tonight, so I doubt I'll be alone. And when did you decide to stop being shy?"
"About the time I ended up fucking you while you were blowing the Pyro." The Soldier smiled grimly. "I don't care if you have knife practice." He juggled her in his arms, readjusting. "I just want to know that you've thought about me during the day."
The Soldier stepped back to the bed and sat down on it, then turned her around, wrapping his arms around her waist and pinning her arms. "The next time, Rosie girl," he growled against her earlobe, "I'm going to bend you over and fuck you in the ass until you scream."
He took a quiet breath, the air feathering over her ears. "I'm going to make you cry, Rosie-girl, and while you're crying, I'm going to keep going because I know you like it. Because I know you'll squirm and you'll cry and you'll love every single second of it."
She made a quiet, whimpering noise and squirmed on his lap, reaching to touch herself. He laughed and captured her hands. "No, Rosie, none of that today. Feel free to get annoyed, though, and take it out on those two fuckers during knife practice. They're pretty annoyed, too, and Snipes says you fight better when annoyed."
The Cook whined, and he tightened his grip painfully. "Think about me today, Rosie. Think about me and think about the next time we can spend time together." The Soldier released her hands. "You can go make breakfast now."
She stood up slowly, half angry and all embarrassed. "I don't know how I feel about that, Solly."
He looked at her impassively. "You telling me I misjudged you, Rosie?"
"I…" She took a breath. "No, you didn't, Solly." She smiled once, wryly. "Christ, got it in one. It's just… it's hard to be so easy to get."
He kept staring at her with the same, quiet intensity. "I want you to think about me, Rosie-girl. I know you have other people to visit, and I know you're too classy to brag or carry tales, but I want to take up a place in your head." The Soldier stood and reached down for his pants. "After last night, Rosie, I want to know you'll think about me."
The Cook opened a drawer, hunching her shoulders, and said nothing.
"Makes you uncomfortable, don't it, Rosie? Feel a little invaded?"
"I don't like to talk about my feelings, Solly. Last night was… it was real close."
"And fucking ain't always that way for you. But I don't want it to be impersonal for you, Rosie. Not after you've got to see me like that. I want you to feel, and I know you can fuck without it, but I want you to fuck me with all of you."
She looked over at him, panic on her face.
"Yeah, that panics you, doesn't it, Rosie? More fear of leaving and being left." He pulled his shirt over his head. "Being nice to you ain't gonna keep you by itself, will it?"
"Jesus," she spat. "Did all you fuckers spend the last fifty years studying psychology?"
He stepped into his boots. "Something like that Rosie. Just a real specific kind of psychology." He saluted her briefly. "The Army'll make thinker of most men, especially when they start asking for volunteers. I ain't all that smart, Rosie-girl, but I ain't dumb either. And we're too alike for me not to know what's going on under all that red hair."
He smiled at her. "So I'll see you soon, I think. Because you'll remember me and you won't get too comfortable."
"Fuck you, Solly."
"Later, Rosie." He looked down her slowly. "Still wet?"
She threw a shoe at him and he ducked, then left.