The Cook refused to leave the kitchen during dinner, putting off invitations to the table by saying that she wanted to get the kitchen clean before knife practice. Through the door, she could see the Soldier watching her with an intent expression, measuring her to see what had clung to her. His eyes flickered across her, back and forth, up and down, searching and probing, the weight of it pushing at her like hands. Someone broke her gaze and she looked up to see the Spy leaning against the door frame. Despite his seeming relaxation, she could see the tension in his shoulders, in the constant small movements of his exposed forearms, crossed and shifting as his fingers drummed them.
"You cannot hide in there forever, Vipere."
She let her eyes flick up and down him, a sneer of frustration and simple exhaustion on her face. "I'm not hiding."
He pulled one of his hands loose and waved it in a circle, his arm tight with anger, and waited.
The Cook sighed, closing her eyes—even as angry as she was, the sight of him still tugged at her, as if some essential part of her had remained with him after that night, confused and longing for something inarticulate and kind. "All right," she said softly, opening them again. "I'm hiding."
"Oui," he said, a growl curling the edges of the word. "You are. But it is time to practice, Vipere." The Spy reached into a pocket and pulled out a balisong, folded into a small steel rectangle. He tossed it at her and she caught it. "Here is one of my spares." The Spy jerked a thumb behind him. "Now."
She was grateful to the surge of annoyance, washing back the urge to close the distance between them, to beg with her whole body that he go back to whatever he had done that had made her feel safe. "Jesus fuck, Sneak," she said, leaning back against the counter. "Do you have to order me around?"
His jaw came out slightly and he ground his teeth. "Would you like me to drag you, Vipere? Say the word," he hissed, "and I will march you there."
"You just gave me a knife." She was smiling coldly—she could feel her lips curve up, the expression on them echoing his in a way that, had she been able to see them both in a mirror, would have terrified her.
"Vipere," he said, the growl now open in his voice and making his tone shiver, "do not think for a moment that I could not take it from you. I will not be… distracted, like our wild friend, for a fuck." His eyelids lowered, looking from her feet up to her head with that same, horribly knowledgeable accounting that had so intimidated her the first day. "Come, you lazy cow, and quit acting like a child."
At least, she thought, with a surge of gratitude for his prickly anger, if I am angry I am not asking how and why he could do what he's done. She unlatched the knife and carefully flipped it up, then locked it open. "Cow?" The Cook snorted, letting her tone heat. "All right, let's play."
The Spy stepped back and to the side with a mockingly elaborate wave of his arm, eyes on her as he bowed once from the waist. "You first, Vipere."
Holding the knife loosely, she edged around him and through the dining room. The mercenaries' eyes followed her and the short blade as she left the room without looking back. After a moment, the Spy followed.
"That's liable to be interesting," the Engineer said. "I think I'll go watch." For whatever else you are, you sneaky fucker, he thought, you can at least rouse the girl to defend herself. Although why you all can't let the girl smile more often beats me. It ain't like you have to be mean all the time to get her attention.
The Scout rolled his eyes. "Nah, not me. There's a game on tonight."
The Medic sighed. "I shall expect to see one or both later. This will, of course, end in someone running to the surgery." He patted the Heavy's hand. "Well, at least we will not have to go to them."
"Will be in the surgery waiting, then?" The Heavy looked at the Medic with a rueful expression. "Would be nice to get whole night together without running across base."
"I'm sorry, Mischa."
"Is part of job, I understand." The Heavy squeezed the Medic's hand on the table. The Medic smiled, gratefully before he spoke. "I am not leaving thetable until I am done eating. Anything before that can wait."
The Sniper sighed heavily and made a sandwich of a roll and a slice of ham before leaving the room, having promised not to interfere. The Pyro kept eating, arm curled around his plate, his worry apparent as much in his silence as in the arm curled around his plate, huddling about the food as if worried it would stop again. The Demo simply poured more scrumpy into his tea and downed it in a single gulp before leaving the room.
The Soldier sighed, appetite entirely gone, and decided to take several laps of the base, sweating out what he knew he could not say until he was too tired to interfere.
The Cook let herself into the gym and put the knife down on a bench to stretch, pulling an elbow over her head and gently pulling it to the side, pulling the stiffness from the muscles under her arm. She didn't turn when she heard the door open, resolved not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her flinch—foreboding, she thought, suits the situation, but I'm not about to give it to him. A few seconds later, she felt the point of a knife against her back, pressed hard enough to part her shirt and leave a small, sharp divot on the skin above her kidneys. They twinged, remembering the BLU Spy's knife.
"Tell me, Vipere," he said, disgust harshening his voice, "were you daring me to stab you or did you just forget I was coming?"
She kept her arm curled above her head and turned it to see the figure behind her with a single eye. "Neither. Were you planning on stabbing me in the kidney before we started practicing? Seems like a waste of time to practice if you kill someone before it starts."
He grabbed and yanked her braid with his spare hand, pulling her head back so that he could look down into her eyes. "What game are you playing, Vipere, that you think taunting me will end well?" A fleck of his spit hit her face. "Lazy and spoiled. And I am supposed to teach you anything about the knife." The Spy released her hair and she straightened as the door opened, admitting the Engineer, who pulled his over-shirt off and sat down at a machine.
"Don't mind me," the Engineer said. "Didn't get much exercise today and I've been eating a lot more recently." He patted his stomach. "Go on. Do your thing." He grabbed the handles. "I'll just do mine."
The Spy took several steps back and unbuttoned his coat, laying it across a machine, followed by his vest. Folding his sleeves up, he took his balisong out with a practiced flip of a gloved hand. "Silly little girl playing at war—tell me, Vipere, did you think I would take this seriously?"
She tucked her braid into the back of her shirt and picked up the knife. "Did I hurt your feelings, Sneak? Did I touch a nerve somewhere?" The Cook turned to the Spy and rotated her wrist, the knife spinning light around the room. "Did I not admire you enough, Peacock? Did you need me to fall to my knees and adore you, or can we practice fucking each other up?"
He half-smiled then, and she could see a moment of pride buried under the acid of his anger. "I could see it under your skin, Vipere. Poisonous thing," he hissed. The Spy took a shuffling step forward and she jumped backward. "Stop dancing, you precious little bitch." He crossed his wrists briefly, mimicking a tie and sending a brief frisson through her.
The Spy smiled as he saw her react, nipples hardening and a single shiver making her spine dance. "Should we tie our hands together so you can't get away?" He stepped forward again and she retreated. "Running away again, Vipere? Isn't that what you do? Fuck and run."
She wanted to laugh, then, a goading and malicious sound that she wasn't sure she could end. The Cook took a single step forward and he dodged, then grabbed her knife hand and she threw herself backward to avoid the stab to her torso. The Spy drew the blade back from the stab slowly, teasingly down the inside of the arm he held while she struggled for balance, splitting her shirt and leaving a long slice down the inside of her arm, burning.
The Spy released her hand and let her step back. "Our Bête forgot himself last time," he snarled. "He got distracted by pussy."
The Cook pressed her bleeding forearm against her shirt. "And you won't," she said, eyes glittering with rage, "will you, Peacock?"
"A pet name, how wonderful. We're at a stage of growth in our relationship, I see." He grabbed his vest from a bench with his free hand. The snarl, dear Vipere, is perfect—this, he thought, is the face that will let you survive.
The Cook's eyes dropped to the vest, confusion momentarily breaking her rage. "What're you going to do with that, Peacock?"
He smiled again, sardonically, and held it loosely in his free hand, letting the fabric spill between his fingers and hang as he moved. She vacillates, he thought, more quickly between moods. Vipere, you are learning control. What an agent I could have made of you. Even unwitting, you learn quickly.
"You're going to want to watch that he don't catch the vest on your knife," the Engineer called out. "He's going to tangle you if he can."
The Spy did not turn, but growled in annoyance. "She is learning a lesson that has nothing to do with you." He smiled, nastily, making eye contact to see if she flinched. "But, Vipere, he is right. Don't dare blink or I will foul your blade."
Her eyes focused on the vest, as he thought they might, and when he threw that arm out, she dodged away from it.
The Spy cut across her exposed forearm, leaving a shallow slice on her knife hand. "You blinked," he said dryly, and threw the vest to the side.
Hot drops of blood spattered on the floor under her arms and she gritted her teeth, the pain fueling rage again and the refusal to leave before she damaged him as he had damaged her. "Is that all you have," she growled. I can take anything, anything you dish out, you poisonous French rapist, she thought.
The Spy laughed and opened his arms briefly. "Vipere, I am a man of many surprises." He vanished.
The Engineer swore. "I'm going to get my hands on that fucking thing at some point."
The Cook heard a faint whisper behind her and instinctively threw herself forward, lashing out behind her with a foot. Her foot hit something solid and she heard the chuff of air leaving his lungs. He wheezed twice before it became silent again. She scrambled to her feet and turned, listening for any sound, looking in the dim lights of the gym for any telltale sign of his presence. A long slice opened up on her back, and she threw herself forward again, tumbling over a bench and scrambling up again with a limp. Her arms burned, her back burned, but she kept turning, trying to find him.
With a shimmer, he appeared on the other side of the bench.
"It is best," he said, "to surprise. For that, you must be silent and hidden." He smirked at her. "But perhaps, in your case, distraction is best." He tapped the fingers of his free hand against his leg. "Tell me, Vipere, how will you get close when you cannot see me?"
She stared at him, hating him, rage simmering underneath her skin until she was sure she might actually glow, the flames behind her eyes consuming her. "I could always throw piss at you," she spat—and ruin your clothes, she thought, and show you what you're worth, pissed out here at the end of the world.
The Spy's eyebrows shot up. "Piss? You have been spending too much time with our Bête."
"Dirt then," she said, eyes narrowing. "Dust. Something."
He nodded his head, the beginning of a smile flashing and dying quickly on his face. Smart Vipere, he thought. I am increasingly sorry I did not acquire you while I was still working as an agent for the pleasure of breaking you in myself. "Good. It will show a hidden thing. If you are lucky, it may get in their eyes."
She watched his body as he stepped back, the waiting tension that sang, electric in his limbs.
"Well, Vipere," he said, tone heating, "come back to the open space and let us see what else you can learn."
The Engineer cleared his throat. "Surely you don't mean to keep cutting her like that."
"If I do," said the Spy, watching the woman slide back out into the rough circle with a cautious sidle, "it will be none of your business. What is the worst that can happen, Engie? She dies?" He chuckled, a low rippling growl. "She's gone through respawn before."
The Cook concentrated on his feet, watching him pace, nearly dancing with a grace that spoke of long rehearsal. Then she smiled, a nasty little grin, and lunged, stabbing at full extension. The Spy jumped back and lashed out, but kept going backward over the bench behind him. She followed, hopping across the bench as he twisted to catch himself, and ending up draped across his back, the knife tickling the skin over his kidneys.
"Peek-a-boo, motherfucker," she growled, joyful and feral.
The Engineer dropped the bar he had been lifting with an echoing clang and started laughing, face red with exertion and surprise. "Oh very nice, little Girl."
The Spy twisted, throwing her off his back, and started to stand, then let himself rest on the floor and started to laugh. Oh Vipere, he thought, pride and rueful regret warring for supremacy, the things I could have done with you.
"Fuck you, Sneak," she panted, sprawled near the machine, still bleeding and not surrendering the knife.
"Ah," he said, gasping, laughter shivering in his tone, "it was like comedy, no?" He blew a raspberry at her, smoothing his hair. "Right over the bench."
She lowered her knife, confused, and he laid a single shallow cut across one of her hands. "And that," he said gleefully, "is for not paying attention. And for not stabbing me when you had the chance."
The Cook smeared a hand down her arm and threw droplets of blood at him, spattering the floor and droplets soaking into his pants. "I'll learn," she said, and he could hear her satisfaction at staining him. "What the fuck is eating you, Sneak?"
"I should make you eat me," he said, the liquid intonation of his home language blurring the vowels.
"I thought," she said, staring at him intently, "you weren't about to be distracted by pussy."
The Spy shrugged, face studied in its nonchalant disinterest and designed to insult. "Are we not done? Did you want to keep failing to cut me?"
She swore, bringing her knees up to rest her bleeding arms on them, the blade still clutched in her hand.
"I have been told," he said teasingly, her frustration sending hot little fingers through him, "that you like a little violence before you fuck."
At that, the Cook's head snapped back. "It's going to be a cold day in hell, Sneak," she said. "I still have the knife."
We'll see, he thought. But I think, Vipere, you will find that's exactly what you want. He smiled at her, the fine lines near his mouth folding gently. "Do you remember what I said when I gave it to you?"
"Gonna come get it," she asked, and tightened her grip, tensing again. "You can try."
The Spy stood up, dusting his slacks off, and disappeared again. The Cook scooted backward, putting a machine behind her, and waited. Seconds dripped by, slowly, and she hunched into herself, gripping the knife. The only sound in the room was the quiet grunt the Engineer made as he curled the bar. She waited, but nothing happened. The Engineer put the bar down and wiped his face with a towel.
"Well," the Engineer said, "that went better than I thought it would, considering how irritable he's been. You gonna go get healed up?"
She looked at the slices: shallow but stinging, more embarrassing then serious. "No, I'll clean them myself. But I should make those assholes buy me more shirts. I've been losing them practically every time I get near Sneak, Snipes, and Solly."
The Engineer made a face, walking toward her. "I doubt you'll get shirts out of any of them. You might want to order a pack of cheap white t shirts or tank tops." He looked at the shredded sleeves of her thermal, running a long slice of fabric between his thumb and forefinger. "That adds up fast, don't it?"
"Yeah, it really does." She sighed. "Time to clean myself up." She folded the knife and put it in her back pocket. "I'm keeping this unless that bastard steals it from me."
"I'm going to finish my sets." The Engineer turned back to the machine, muscle picking broad hills out of his shoulders. "If you want company, you know where my room is." His voice softened. "But little Girl, I'm proud of you."
She laughed then, a mixture of despair and surprise—she'd classified him as one of the nicer men around her, but he, too had his agenda. I suppose, she thought, I should thank the Medic despite his malice for being honest. "Maybe," she said. "'Night, Engie."
"'Night, little Girl."
She walked to her room, passing what sounded like a rather intense game of poker in the living room, and closed the door, locking it after checking her room and bathroom. The Cook looked at her sleeves, made a face and gingerly pulled the shirt off, rolling it around the slices. "Fuck, that's another one." She wadded it up and threw it into a corner. "Fantastic."
The Cook sat down on her bed to unlace her shoes and threw them into a different corner. After a quiet moment, she pulled her jeans off and threw them into a third corner. "Nothing," she muttered. "I know that asshole is somewhere around here."
She padded to the shower in her underwear, shoulders high with tension, and bent over to turn it on.
"I see you've lost your knife, Vipere."
The Cook spun, catching the Spy as he reappeared, picking his nails with his knife and leaning against her bathroom sink. "Oh goddamn it," she said, voice more deadened than surprised—you never can leave it alone, can you, she thought. "Where were you?"
"Moi?" He smiled, predatory anticipation baring his canines. "Nowhere, Vipere. I was nowhere."
"I suppose," she said quietly, longing coming back as her anger faded, "that you want to fuck now."
"Why Vipere," he said, mock surprise flattening in his voice, "whatever put such an idea in your head?" He flipped the knife around, closing it and tucking it into his slacks. "No, you reek. Bathe first."
She threw her arms up, exasperated. "And if I refuse."
He pointedly stared at the slices on her arms.
"Aren't you going to call your friend?"
"No, Vipere, he owes me this after the last practice. And there are a few things," he said, voice cutting, "that I need to say and our dear Bête is a bit too emotional to hear."
"Fantastic. Any more emotional abuse left in there, or should I just assume you're out of shitty things."
"I am never," he said, "out of ways to hurt. You are offending my nose, enfant gâté."
"Brat?" She shook her head. "You are the vainest, nastiest man I've ever met." The Cook turned her back to him again, spinning the taps, and stepped out of her underwear.
"Do hurry, enfant gâté," he said, "or I will come in there with you and it will not be to tickle."
"How the hell did you—" She trailed off. "Never mind. I don't want to know and I don't care." She stepped into the shower and hissed, involuntarily, as the water hit the slices along her forearms, hand and back.
The Spy smiled on the other side of the plastic curtain and put both hands on the counter next to him, curling his fingers around its lip. "Faster, Vipere. Be done soon." Be done soon, he added silently, or when I come in there, I will do to you what you wish me to whether you like it or not, and I will make it hurt.
"Or what," she grumbled. "Gonna come in here and fuck me clean?"
"Non," he said—fuck you clean? No, he responded silently, I will fuck you dirty down to the undiscovered and vicious depths of your soul. "But I will be most inventive when you get out in ways you may not like."
She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair one last time, checking for soap and snarls. "Fine, I'm getting out. But I am not turned on."
He looked at her with an infuriating smile. "Is that so, Vipere? Shall I check?"
"I have no idea why I put that knife down, but I'm starting to wonder if I should just keep one on me all the time." She squinted up at him, squeezing the ends of her hair into a towel. "I can't help but think you need to be stabbed a few times."
"That is quite funny," he said, smile crinkling the fan of skin near his eyes. "I was just thinking the same thing."
She flipped her wet hair behind her and stared at him. "Ha, ha. Sex pun. How do you think you're going to get me in bed, you obnoxious asshole?"
"Won't you please come to bed, mademoiselle?" He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "Oh pretty please, as you Americans insist on saying." The Spy reached out quickly, snagging her hair. "Oh do come and spend some time with me. I would so appreciate your company." His fist wound in it and he pulled. "Oh please come spend some time with me."
She dropped the towel and grabbed his wrist with both hands, digging in her heels. "And if I say no?"
The Spy looked at her with that same, infuriating smile. "And will you?"
She kicked him in the shin and drew her foot back to nail him in the knee. He moved his knee out of the way and pulled her from the bathroom by the hair. "And will you, Vipere? Will you say no, little fool?" He held a hand to his ear, theatrically listening. "Oh, do say yes."
"Let go of my fucking hair, you son of a bitch."
"You had only to ask." He released her hair and peeled his dampened gloves off, slowly tucking them into a back pocket. "But I want to hear you say it, Vipere."
"What is the goddamn point of telling you no? All you have to do is reappear in my bedroom with that knife."
He looked her up and down, watching the towel slip. "That is not the game we're playing, Vipere. The game we're playing makes you just as guilty as I. So you have to ask."
She grabbed at the towel and missed, then let it fall, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of her modesty or of knowing that she could recognize the ravenous, unreasoning hunger on his face. "Guilt—you worthless asshole, what would you know of guilt? What would you know of pain or responsibility or even fucking regret?"
The Spy's smile was flirty, terrible in its incongruity. "I see you have a little talent at this game. But, Vipere, you still haven't answered me."
"You are just a world-burning-down fuck, aren't you," she snarled. "Everything spoiled and gone to shit."
"Do go on, Vipere," he breathed. "Shall I assume that if I touched you, I would find you had melted? Would you like me to touch you?" He made a slow, hooking gesture with one hand, fingers curled in a classic come hither motion, the flirty smile deepening into something predatory and full of the knowledge that the human mind is fragile.
She put her head in her hands, shivering, and he tapped a leather clad toe on the floor, an unsubtle reminder of time passing and his question. "Shall I make it easier for you, Vipere?" On instinct, probing from memory and what he knew of small towns in the conservative state of her birth, he added. "Shall I play, perhaps, a distant father? Or maybe a priest, stern of conviction and angry of face?"
She colored and backed away, looking at him in brief, catastrophic horror. He could feel himself growing hot at that, a heavy warmth between his legs that needled his composure—Vipere, amour, the weapon you just handed me, he thought, lips parting with a harsh breath.
"Do run away, Vipere," he said, unable to keep the anticipation out of his voice. "I would find nothing between your legs right now, no trace of moisture, no desire at all." He took a single step toward her. "Of this, I am sure. As sure as I am of that poison in you, the poison that is right now stealing through you like a drug."
She looked up, horrified, watching his eyelids low over his eyes, the careless curls of his hair tumbling on his forehead.
"So say no, Vipere," he hissed. "Tell me to go. Tell me desire does not run its poisonous fingers through you right now because I will tell you horrible things, the things you know to be true about yourself and will never admit. Tell me you do not hate it, the honey warmth that is making you weak in the knees."
She took a single step back and fell backward on to her bed, fingers pressed to her mouth, and his breath caught for a moment in his throat at the transparency in it.
"Tell me," he breathed, "that you do not crave what you hate. Tell me, Vipere, that you do not have a part of your mind that wants to inflict pain, a part of yourself that you try to hide from."
She whimpered then—Vipere, he thought, hunger and satisfaction roaring through him, you are the raw stuff of which I have made the most exquisite killers. He took another step. "Tell me you do not crave what I'm offering because of that part of yourself, the sick adoration of the desire you hate."
"Fuck you," she said, voice shaking, and crawled backward until her back hit the wall. "Fuck you, you sadistic son of a bitch."
"Tell me no," he whispered, stepping closer to the bed. "Tell me no before I cross this last step." He let the silence stretch, watching her pant and stare at him. Her knees shook, the poisonous desire he had described burning up her nerves, making her knees hard to press together.
"Shall I go, Vipere? One last time will I ask." He crossed his hands before himself, teasingly, reminding her of restraints and being restrained, of the knife and the overwhelming desire to hurt. "Do you want me to leave?"
"I…." She hugged herself, breath short and harsh.
"Be honest, Vipere. Be honest with yourself and what you want."
She looked up at him then, eyes open windows into her soul and the riot of desires in it. Bête, he thought, for all your impatience and the crudity of your methods, you are contagious as any experienced agent. The girl is ours, body and soul. He paused for a moment, weighing. Helen, he thought, if this was your intention, you laid your bait well.
The Spy crossed the last step, brushing the bed with his knees, each slow advance into the space between them making the air crackle and buzz against her skin and his. "We have had decades to perfect our cruelty on each other, decades to hone ourselves."
He put a knee on the bed. "Decades to understand every poison the mind offers, every death the body can give, petite or non."
The Spy put a second knee on the bed. "Decades to learn how to hurt each other in every way possible. Decades of lying to women and men in town, bending them over and," he paused, watching the words sink into her, "making them shriek."
He crawled forward a single step. "Decades of study in our boredom and pain, of listening to our own stories."
The Spy came forward the last foot, stopping when his lips were inches from hers and breath tickling them. "If I believed in hell, Vipere, I might argue that we were there. You have the look," he said quietly, "of someone who knows how banal hell can be."
She took a single breath, eyes pleading for reprieve, for some evidence that the sickening mixture of desire and willing filth in her was merely a game they were playing, that he would stop and she would once again be simply a Cook. "You could have had decades to learn to help each other."
He placed a gentle kiss on one of her cheekbones, drifting toward her ear. "How fair would it be if you stayed thinking we were kind," he murmured. "How fair would it be if I let you think that we loved anything at all?" There was a twinge, then, in his chest, the pain making the hunger sweeter.
"I don't believe you," she said in his ear—the pride in them all, the words of the Engineer and the heat in the Sniper's gaze, the Soldier's prickly search of her face. "I've seen you all care."
"Have you," he whispered, eyebrows rising. He drew back to look at her face. "How would you know?"
"Smoke and mirrors," she said quietly, watching his face as he watched hers, "only distort what's there. They don't make it disappear."
"You think you can do make us care?" He smiled incredulously. "I thought more of you than the desire to reform our withered black hearts. How very feminine. How very, very weak of you."
"I don't think I pierce you so deeply, slippery as you are. But our wild friend…" She trailed off watching the dart sink in, his pupils dilating.
"The best seductions," he murmured, shocked at her observation, "are dangerous for everyone."
"Cut me," she said, malicious and gleeful, "and I'll cut back. One way or another."
He answered her by kissing her, a kiss that started smooth and practiced. She refused to play along, forcing her tongue into his mouth—crude and choking—until he drew back.
"Fuck you," she said, chin wet. "Fuck you, you don't get to run everything."
He cocked a single eyebrow.
"No, Sneak, fuck me and I'll fuck you back." She wiped her chin with the back of a hand, glaring at him. "You want to play these games with me, fine. Let's play, but don't expect me to lay there trembling because you cut me a bit."
"Perhaps we should have you tattoo wormwood on the inside of your wrist as a warning to our more delicate friends, fools that they are." He smiled, feral. "Which one is the true you, Vipere, the you who cries on the Demo's shoulder? The you we can turn so easily into a toy?" He cocked his head. "Or maybe this you?"
She looked at him, cold rage buffering the poisonous lust until it faded back—if I am, she raged silently, it is because you have made me so. "You'll come to your own conclusions."
He smiled once, tersely, angry at her refusal to admit his point, to admit that she showed different faces to different men—if you will be honest with anyone, Vipere, he cautioned her silently, you will be honest with me. If you force me to go looking for it, amour, I will slice you open from chin to toes to find it. After a moment, he murmured, "desire can be a weapon, Vipere. Let me teach you a little about it."
The Spy reached out for her and she flinched, unable to retreat for the frigid wall behind her back. He dug his fingers into the still jangling nerves on the inside of her knees, sending a jolt of pain to her hips and making her legs sag open. "There is a nerve," he said, watching her face tighten, "here, that sends fire down your legs if you don't relax them."
He smoothed his hands down her tingling legs, leaving a honeyed warmth in their wake that sharpened the lingering, angry sting by contrast. "There are corresponding nerves in your arms, neck, and hands. You can make a lover submit whether they will or not, make them open their legs or drown their senses, if they respond to pain."
She let herself relax and looked at him through her eyelashes, waiting for him to need to sink himself into her, waiting to see if he would get caught up and forget himself. The Spy could see it, could see her waiting for him to release, waiting for him to lose himself. She made a moue at him, lips wet and slick, offering wordlessly and mockingly to see what he would take.
"I will not get distracted that easily," he murmured, rolling himself up on his knees. His open hands glided up her torso slowly, touch feathering away from groin and nipples, then coming back down her sides. She twisted, trying to force him to touch her nipples without using her hands, to force him to acknowledge that he, too, could feel the heat between them. His face was distant with a music she could not hear, that made him sway gently as his hands moved as if dancing.
"Desire is a weapon, foolish girl," he whispered, "that cuts into the hardest heart, the most armored of souls."
His touch gradually grew heavier, tracing long lines down her sides, near misses with her breasts, teasing, circling, and coming within millimeters of touching her where she had begun to ache. She gritted her teeth against the hunger in her skin, the slow weight of desire pressing her down and running through her body in a thick, sweet tide.
"Don't let anyone tell you," he murmured, "that love cuts as deep. A man will kill for love, maybe die for it. But for desire, he will sell himself every day into a slavery that love cannot make soft." For a moment, his memory fed him again the sight of her hair falling and pooling on the Sniper's shoulder, chin tilted up moving like the ripples in a pool, utterly abandoned to sensation and vulnerable. He bit his lip, feeling again the weight of knowingly shaping another person, of taking from them the most personal silences in their minds—did I not say, Vipere, he thought guilt and lust reeling in the blood that pooled, hot, in his cock, that the best seductions cut both ways? To the bone, Petite, reaving and burning as it goes.
The Spy backed up and pulled her down, to lay looking up at him. The same stroking fingers released her hips and trailed down them, in swirls and dips finding the places she made her bite the inside of her cheek to avoid shivering. And still he avoided nipples, lips, and any place that would give her relief. She clenched her fists and put them underneath her body.
He chuckled at that, a short, rich sound, watching her back bow up above her fists. "Bind yourself if you like, Vipere. Hide your hands underneath you. What might they do if you did not?"
The Spy's face grew preoccupied again and he leaned forward, balancing on his fists. His lips hovered just above her skin and breathed out gently, his breath doing what his fingers had, seconds earlier, the wet warmth and anticipation raising goose flesh behind it.
"What will happen," he said, lips brushing the fine hairs on her arm, "when I lick you? Will you jump?"
She closed her eyes and deliberately bit her own tongue as his darted out, tracing wet lines that trailed close to and veered from her nipples. Her skin burned, desire and hunger and the need to see him lose, to die victorious and screaming on the body above her. When he finally sucked her nipple into his mouth, she went rigid, gasping.
"Point one," he said, pulling away from her nipple in wet strings, "to me."
She looked at him, arms twitching with the desire to punch him, to strike out and punish.
"But if you do that," he said, running a finger tip down her bicep, "I win as well—because I made you hit me rather than admit that you want something. More running away."
The Spy reached between her legs, fitting his thumb into the hollow left by the tendons in her inner thighs, and started to massage the muscle, sending warm little shocks up her spine. She could feel heat building in the muscles as they relaxed under his fingers, a weakness that made it impossible to pick up her legs, drugged and heavy.
"There is," he said quietly, "a cluster of nerves there, too." When he followed the hollow away, down the inside of her thigh, she made a low noise in the back of her throat, then held her breath in frustration at the noise.
"Point two," he said, pupils wide and drowning dark.
The Spy stroked his thumbs down the seam of muscle on the outside of her lips, pressure parting them slickly as his thumbs came down, making them rub against themselves. The muscle in her jaw rippled as he ran a finger down that seam, picking up moisture. "You don't like this? We both know the body can be made to do many things—but a mind," he murmured. "A mind requires skill."
He took a breath and spoke, thick and deep. "Tell me, Vipere, do you dream of it? Do you dream of your body suspended between the Sniper and I, of the words home and hunger?"
She flinched at that, a sob in her breath before she could stop herself. "I won't," she said, her voice shaking with tension, "argue that you can't make my body react."
He smiled, pinching one of her lips and pulling the skin, sliding his nail along the inside of it for the fine line of pain that made her gasp. "No, Vipere, I can direct many things from here."
"But you can't make me like it." She flushed after she said it, knowing herself to be telling a kind of lie and unwilling to tell him the truth—what she liked had always been there, the mad and manic urges that made her nomadic, that filled her with strange and violent urges. He had merely conjured it from her and held up a dark mirror, making her look at it in all its carnivorous glory.
A sardonic smile flashed across his face. "I don't have to make you do a thing, silly girl. Your hands are not restrained. You could have told me to leave. And you are free to tell us all to leave." He took a single breath, fingers still stroking the outside of the seam between her legs, slick and teasing. "But you won't and you don't, because desire is a more effective leash than love."
The Spy leaned forward, breath caressing her face. "And you do not, no matter what face you show these men, care."
"I can care," she said, cut to the quick and bleeding. "I do care about them."
"Which of your faces, Vipere, is real? Who are you really?" With a gentle push, he slid a slick finger into her and she came up off the bed, her lips framing a soundless moan. "Do you love, little Vipere? Can you love?"
His finger traced a come-hither inside her, sending sparks behind her eyes. "What part of you is still soft? What part of you still longs to be held?"
"You won't find it this way," she panted, fighting the urge to stay suspended, back curved off the bed and eyes rolled up in her head, turned inside out by his fingers and his words.
"Oh, but I've already found out some of what I wanted to know," he said, fingers flexing in a slow rhythm. "Tell me, little fool, whose bed would you seek if I left you wanting?"
"What if I," she shivered, biting the inside of her cheek, "stayed in my own and told you all to go to hell?"
He reached up with a thumb, rubbing her clit as his fingers flexed. The cords in her stomach jumped and the long muscles of her thighs picked themselves out of her legs, tense. The Spy laughed as she started to tense around his fingers. He waited until her breath took on the characteristic rhythm, then pulled his fingers from her.
"Would you," he said, mocking, his breath as short as hers. "If I left right now, would you stay in your own bed? Tell me, Vipere, did you bring anything to help yourself?"
"I did," she said, "but the damn thing disappeared at some point."
The Spy merely smiled. Her eyes narrowed and she pulled her hands out from under herself. "You didn't. Did you?" She reached for his shirt and he leaned back. "Did you, you son of a bitch?"
He slid his fingers back into her and resumed the same, maddening curl, rubbing with his thumb.
"Whose bed would you go to? Our friendly Engineer? The Soldier, and his barely contained violence? The Pyro, who wants to please you? Our vanilla Demo? The Bête? Surely you would not intrude on the good Doctor and his lover? I know you do not care for the lapin."
"You left," she panted, "your own bed out."
He snorted, once. "So you would seek this out again. I suppose I should not be surprised that you would seek an outlet for your poison. Tell me, Vipere, when you cry in their arms, do you mean the tears?"
She glared at him, sitting up against his clever fingers. "You don't deserve to know."
The Spy smiled and pulled his fingers from her, then stuck them in his mouth, staring at her as he cleaned his fingers. When they were clean, he pulled them out slowly, letting them graze his lips and watching the involuntary contraction of her pupils. He unbuttoned his shirt, leaning on his elbow, and pulled it from his pants, watching the tell-tale flush across her breasts deepen. The Spy stood up, off the bed, and slowly unbuttoned his pants, watching the same flush spread down. Kicking off his socks and shoes, he crawled onto the bed and sat back on his knees.
"Desire is best as a weapon, Vipere, when only one person is drowning. When only one person is burning, waiting for release."
She looked him up and down, then pointedly stared at his erection. "You aren't at your best."
"I never said, Vipere, that I did not enjoy a little … interrogation." He dug his thumbs into the nerves on the inside of her knees and forced them up, the nerves shrieking, to her nose. He released her knees and she folded her calves down.
"Now what, Sneak?" She laughed, a low, hoarse sound. "Going to fuck the information out of me?"
His thumbs went back to the hollow made by the tendons on the inside of her thighs, seeking and pressing on the nerve cluster that made a honeyed warmth trickle up her spine. He let her relax into it before slowly increasing the pleasure, letting that pleasure start to become burning pain, shading into a panicking numbness. Her legs twitched and he leaned into them, forcing them back with his shoulders.
"No, Vipere, you will keep them there so I can have access to you."
He let one of the nerves go to glide himself into her, then put that thumb back on the nerves in her thighs. She tensed, hissing, as he slid in. He released the pressure enough to allow it to go back to warmth and moved gently, watching her eyelids slide closed, fluttering.
"Can't," she whispered, "make me talk."
"Not yet," he whispered back. "But you will." He splayed his fingers across the back of her thighs for leverage, and slowly increased the pressure on those nerves, watching her tense and her mouth open into a soundless cry as the sensation verged back into pain, moving with an unhurried rhythm made shallow by his hands between them. Her knees twitched against him and her eyes squeezed with pain. When the first wetness appeared at the edges of her eyelashes, he released the pressure, still moving with the same, unhurried rhythm.
She was wet around him, flexing, and he smiled. "Doing that on purpose, Vipere? Very nice, but you cannot make me do anything I do not wish to do."
Her eyes rolled open and she licked her dry lips. "Must be hard to wall yourself away from pleasure that way, to make it into a game that does not affect you." She took a breath. "But it does, doesn't it?"
The Spy froze, then dug his thumbs savagely into those nerves, twisting, sending a wave of itching, burning, awful pain up her spine that made her try to clap her knees together against his chest.
"Go ahead," she gasped. "Lose your temper."
After one last, vicious twist, he took a deep breath and smoothed his face with an effort. "A point to you." He parted her knees and forced them to the bed on either side of her head, using a nerve cluster in the back of her knees. The Spy let his hands glide up to her ankles, to dig his thumbs into the nerve-cluster near her ankle, sending a wave of pain up her legs.
"Behave, Vipere. And answer my question: what face is yours? Which face is real?"
She rolled her hips underneath him with a contemptuous smile, squeezing at his cock, and mimed locking her lips and throwing the key away. He responded with a slow roll of his hips, bumping her clit on the upstroke, the same leisurely pace grating at her nerves, at the anger singing behind her eyelids.
"Maybe this is the real face," he said, voice gravelly and low. "Manipulation. Tears for the men who need tears. Poison to hide the hollowness at your heart."
She could not stop the first tear, and locked the muscles in her arms to trembling trying to distract herself, to prevent herself from breaking into sobs. "Wrong," she said through gritted teeth. "You cynical fuck."
"Obviously," he said, sardonically. "Cry for me and see if it distracts me. See if I have a conscience you can appeal to with helpless tears."
She opened her wet eyes to stare at him. "Tell me it doesn't turn you on. Tell me you aren't doing this because it arouses you." A second tear joined its mate, overflowing and running down her cheeks and into her hair.
He stopped and leaned down, still holding her calves, bringing his face within inches of hers. "I'm enjoying this, yes. But Vipere, that's not the only reason I'm doing it." He kissed her, gently, on the lips. "I want to know what kind of woman the company chose. I want to see who you really are." He kissed her again, lips lingering. "And I want to break your shallow little heart."
She bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed, to keep herself from sobbing. "Why," she said, her voice thick.
"I'll tell you, Vipere, when we're done here." He sat up and shifted, getting his knees underneath himself. The Spy let his hands glide down her legs to her hips and pulled her forward slightly. With a convulsive thrust of the muscles in his thighs, he pushed himself into her as far as he could go, then pulled himself almost all of the way out, watching her body move to chase him and keeping himself just barely seated. When she stopped chasing, he shoved himself back into her, waiting for her to go limp again before repeating himself. When she finally went limp, he took up a punishing rhythm, the fast, wet slap of his hips against hers fast as her heart.
The Cook started to sob, and the Spy smiled, picking up the pace. Her sobs turned to hiccups, then he watched as she bit her lip, her breathing choppy and arrested. The slab of muscle over her public hair started to tremble.
"Do it," he said. "Do it because I told you to."
She took a breath to tell him to fuck himself and it broke over her. She shuddered. He watched it travel through her and kept going. She started to turn, sensitive and uncomfortable, and he dug his fingers into her hips, holding her still, and kept going, still watching. She put her hands up to his chest and pushed, but he kept going, watching the fight fade from her face, watching her muscles twitch and her hands fall. When she began to squeeze him again, he let himself go, letting the pleasure spill up his back and seeing it mirrored on her face.
When he finally slowed and pulled himself away from her, he said, "Because if I break your heart, it will be harder for someone else to break it. Because if I force your hand, if the BLU take you again and give you to that soldier, you will not break as easily."
She rolled away from him on the bed, sobs racking her body and shaking the bed. The Spy pulled her into the curve of his body and let her sob, murmuring in French, words she did not hear, could not understand, waiting out the storm of her tears.
"I hate you," she whispered.
"Vraiment?" He replied. "No, I think you do not. I think you hate me now, but you will not hate me forever. I think, Vipere, that you will have cause to thank me if they take you again. This is night and day," he whispered in her ear, "from what you may have to endure. And if I have broken you down, it is a small fracture that I can help you heal."
She wailed, a hopeless sound that ran through him like a bullet. He took a sharp breath, eyes tightening, the urge to curl around her and comfort warring with reckless hunger.
"Remember what I said, Vipere. Remember that desire is a stronger leash than love, and a sharper weapon than any knife we may carry." He kissed the top of her head. "Remember and do not get cut deeply."
The wails became terrible, deep sobs, bleeding from her limp body where it lay against his. Above her head, the Spy stared at the far wall and sighed, his own chest stinging with the desire to break down.
He left at some point in the night, a hole in the bed and inside her, icy and horrible. The alarm went off and her nerves jumped in pain, propelling her from the room to slam her fist down on the clock until it stopped shrilling. Naked, breathing wildly, still stinking of sex, the stared down at the cracked plastic until her heart slowed, at the scattered small chips that had made up its guts. The contract she had signed and the memory of Miss Pauling's face led her to the shower, through the process of getting dressed, and into the kitchen. She made breakfast, the expression of casual violence in her face preventing any of the mercenaries from speaking to her. The Spy merely tipped his head again, watching the murder that burned in her with a mix of satisfaction and regret.
When they left, the Cook prepared a Crock-Pot stew for dinner and walked to the armory. Selecting a familiar rifle, she slung it over her shoulder. The extra clip for the rifle and one for her pistol went into the back pocket of her jeans. The balisong that the Spy refused to take back went into the top of her boot. Satisfied, she took a breath and walked out of the kitchen.
Sneaking around the edges of the fight, she found an empty barn and climbed to the haystack. The open, warped window was small, ideal for her purposes, and she dragged a moldy hay bale to the window and propped the edge of the rifle on the window sill. Sighting down it, she scanned the field to find someone, anyone to shoot. The BLU Engineer walked bow-legged under the weight of a portable turret. With a single, soft pull and a crack of thunder, she scattered his brains and a palm of scalp and bone across the ground next to him. A long, hot jacket spat out of the gun, grazing her cheek. She flinched, then ignored the burn, scanning again for a target.
The BLU Scout stood over the RED Pyro, bat raised, smirking in triumph. She blew a smoking crater in his chest, leaning back slightly to let the shell miss her face, and went back to scanning.
The BLU Heavy suffered another amputation when he stopped to open fire on the field, his Medic ducking for cover behind the nearest rock. She smiled, a grim elation filling her and running though her like the first euphoria of a drink. She put the gun down and stretched her back, waiting through the pause the Sniper had taught her to take, body half-cocked and eager to take up the rifle again.
Fifty yards away, the BLU Spy shimmered out of sight.
After a short pause, she picked the rifle up again, cradling it in the hollow of her arm and the corner of the window frame, bracing her legs to take the shock. Sighting down the familiar scope lines, she waited for someone to round the corner of the BLU spawn building.
"I wondered," he said dryly. "Your sniper is usually better about chest or head shots. He can also hit a moving target and knows not to take three shots in a row."
She dropped the rifle butt and started to turn, but was stopped by the blade kissing the pulse on the side of her neck.
"Come to find out," the voice continued, "it's amateur hour."
"Which one are you?"
"Guess."
"Well, you haven't called me Honey"—her fingers inched toward her boot—"so it's not the soldier."
"Very good." The blade parted the first layer of skin over her pulse.
"You must be the BLU Spy."
"Correct," he said. "Now take off that boot. Slowly."
She swore and inched her foot out of it. He took it from her carefully and shook the knife out of it.
"Practice with friends? I wonder if you're any good at it."
Her socked foot flexed against the boards as she contemplated turning anyway, and using the seconds left to her as she bled out to shoot him.
"Tell you what," he said. "I did promise that the next time I caught you out here, I'd incapacitate you and play with you."
Her breath caught in her throat.
"But I'm curious to see if you're any good with that little thing." He chuckled, a single dry sound. "RED always did favor the most petite little knives. Me, I like something a bit larger. Something a little… rounder."
She felt leather fingers stroke once down the nape of her neck. "You keep playing with those boys and you're going to start looking like one. That's a real pity in a cook. The skinny ones always look so sad."
"Get it over with," she said dully. "It isn't like I don't know how it feels."
She heard a surprised snort. "And they've made you mouthier. No, this will never do. Stand up and put the boot back on, we're going for a walk. If you try to grab the rifle, at this distance, I'll cut you to shit. Leave it."
She felt blindly behind her for the boot, and he pulled the knife back, leaving a thin, stinging slice on her neck. She put the shoe on, tying it and staring out of the warped window, a dull dread rising in her chest along with an oddly freeing pessimism. The worst was happening, and she hadn't died yet. Every time I think I've found the worst, she thought, the humor like a gallows she walked toward, I keep finding more.
When she stood, she found him a few steps away from her, the characteristic blue suit muddied and bloody. "Turn," he said, "and climb down the ladder slowly. You bolt and I'll find you and hand what's left over to the Soldier. He has a bone to pick with you."
She climbed slowly down the ladder, each warp oddly distinct under her fingers. At the bottom she paused, looking at him swinging his leg over the edge.
"I can see you," he said. "Want to find out how good I am at hide and seek? Neighborhood champ, my whole childhood."
She let the tension drain from her legs and waited for him to reach the last rung. As he started to step back from the ladder, she lashed out with a leg, hitting him squarely in the chest. He stumbled sideways, gasping, and she took off like a rabbit, running for the base. The world blurred, her chest heaving, as her feet pounded the ground. Steps from the base, something snagged her braid and she was yanked backward, falling on her ass.
"Well, shit, Honey, and here I was coming to you." The BLU Soldier looked down, smiling in disbelief. "Looks like this is my lucky day." He cocked his fist back and knocked her out.