((Okay, quick author's note-- I wasn't sure how I was going to write this when I got a request (from frogwhocantjump on tumblr) that was thematically very similar to two fics, one that was never finished and one that I was in the middle of when the request came in, and then I kind of figured it out but it turned out it was going to have to be another long one, so here I am. Sniper/Spy is endgame, not that I'm sure I need to tell y'all, and I will be switching off between their POVs in first person, for the same reason I'm not revealing the prompt up front.)) ---/-/--- Ch.I- SNIPER ---/-/--- Dear #04433 I clutched at the sheet, not quite ready to read on. I mean, I reckon I've always been a bit... all right, a bit paranoid, about my mail, and that was even when the only letters I ever got were from my parents. Well, from Mum. The bloody lonely hearts service was a stupid whim, or just some brief bout of insanity, I don't know, but ever since I put in the little advert, I've been desperate not to let the bloody team find out. At least the people who handle it seem discreet, I just... No. All right. Gonna read the damn letter. I've never written into one of these operations before. I'm not certain why it was important to me to let you know that... it seems a little silly, after all, you placed an ad, so of course you don't think it's just for sad people. I thought perhaps we would have something in common. At the very least, your ad said you were 'a million miles from home', and I know what it is like to uproot yourself only to end up in a dreary little desert town where you don't know anyone, or at least anyone eligible. It gets lonely. I would very much like to hear back from a man who understands that. I am independent, financially. I thought you ought to know that. I like nice things, not that there are many nice things one finds around towns like Teufort. I enjoy simple ones as well. I like reading, and I like to cook. I used to garden, but I haven't been able to get anything to grow out here. That's the desert for you, isn't it? The ad didn't have much room for hobbies, I suppose, but you could write me about yours. I promise not to talk business at all, you sounded as if you needed a break from being a 'professional with no social life'. Yours Sincerely, Genevieve And she has a name. Genevieve. I can't believe a woman wrote back. I mean, I've been watching the mail like a hawk, but I never believed... All right, all right, steady on. Got to check up on my contract first and make sure I'm allowed to give my name to civilians, at least-- be damn weird signing every letter with the number the agency gave me! But it would be worse to have the company showing up to interfere in my love life. I mean, not that it's... I mean, I ought to be able to sign my own name on a letter to a woman! Which I am not nervous about writing. It's a letter. Gotta be easier than talking, I can... can go over a few rough drafts, make sure it's perfect. Well, not too perfect, don't want to sound like someone else, but I can give it a read-over just to make sure I'm not making an idiot of myself. A girl, a woman, a real one, bloody hell. I haven't touched a woman in years. Reckon it's like riding a bicycle, but still. What if I've forgotten how to ride a bicycle? I mean, not forgotten. I mean... I haven't got the most illustrious past with girls. Fumbled away my virginity at seventeen, broke up after-- and for that matter, not the most illustrious past with men, just a few traded handjobs in the army, but women are safer and sweeter. One thing fucking around with a bloke, but I could never marry one. Not that a woman's ever gotten close to marrying me. A couple times I thought I had a shot at a relationship only to find out I was a fling... apparently I'm good fling material, fine for cutting your teeth on and not for settling down with. Well, maybe they knew something I didn't, then, since I turned into this... Oh hell. Oh fucking bloody hell, what-- No. She said she wouldn't even ask about business. She never has to know what I do. We'll just go slow. By the time she wants to merge our finances, I'll be done with this contract and... And what, a sniper for hire again? She's not going to want that. Retirement? Not that old yet. Ahead of myself either way. Who's to say this girl is ever going to want to settle down with me? I don't know, maybe. Could take her away from here if she hates it, and find something new to do with my life, if things do go well. And if they don't go well long, at least for a little while I've got someone to write to who won't send me letters about how I'm a disappointment to my father. Anyway, my best stories are from before the war, mostly, I could tell any of those. I fold the letter carefully back in its envelope and slip it into the drawer where I keep all my correspondence, before hopping out of the camper and heading back for the base. Should call in and get some important qualifiers about what 'Don't tell anybody your name' means... Should just be glad the company makes sure mail gets delivered even when we're out at Dustbowl instead of closer to town. Don't tell 'anybody'... I mean, that just means the team, yeah? Like anyone had to tell me twice not to give my teammates any personal info. Speaking of, I dodge the Scout and hopes he keeps heading in his direction while I go mine. Of all the people I don't want listening in on this phone call, he's number one. When I call the number pasted to the phone, I get patched through to Miss Pauling. "Got a quick question about the fine print on my contract." I open. "I can get that pulled up for you." She answers smoothly, and I can hear a filing cabinet rattle around. "What did you need to know." "This whole absolute secrecy with names-- it doesn't extend to civilians, yeah? I mean, not that I go around spreading any information to civilians, I just mean--" "You're free to date, Mr. Mundy." She sounds amused, and my face burns. "That is what this is about?" "Sort of. I mean-- I wouldn't mention my job. It's just... it's just letters, anyway." "Oh." There's a faint note of... disapproval? Could just be surprise, I don't know. "Yeah, well. Put out one of those ads as a-- as a laugh." "Oh. Oh, you put out an ad!" Was that relief? "Yeah. I mean, like I said, it was just for laughs, but..." "You actually got a reply?" She asks, and that is definitely envy, sort of wistful envy. "From someone who isn't clearly an insane person?" "Not clearly." I shrug, trying to keep my tone noncommittal. "I mean, not that I've ever written into one of those things, or sifted through a dozen letters from crazy people, and I've definitely never gotten a letter from a stranger who bragged about losing several teeth to an angry farm animal." "Company doesn't allow for a healthy social life for anyone, does it?" I laugh. "... Not really. Well, exercise caution, don't say anything about the company that they wouldn't want the public to hear, and enjoy your day." She finishes crisply, before hanging up on me. I start whistling halfway to the camper and have to stop myself before anyone can see me, but I start up again once I'm far enough from the base proper. There's a letter from a woman sitting in my drawer and who knows, in a week's time there may be another one. After the kind of dry spell I've suffered, that's pretty good.
Anne, you are my favourite.
Ch.II- SPY ---/-/--- I double-check every one of my locks, as well as the window shade-- as if anyone ever bothered me this early on a Saturday, as if anyone bothered me on the weekends at all. The mail came in Friday after the last round, and I have been saving this... I have been saving this. It's not as though I can go into town and strike up a conversation with a man, not a real one, not one that might lead somewhere. Maybe it is a little unfair to him, stringing him along with the written word when we can never meet, but it is unfair to me as well. It is only the best I can manage, for now. Enough some days to make me hate this all, but I have a career, and with what BLU pays me, well... I didn't have nearly enough to support myself in the manner I would like, not nearly enough to plan for a retirement on, when I was languishing in the more bohemian spots in Paris. Maybe I will never get a retirement. That was always a danger. I was a master of disguise by the time I was fifteen and I didn't know if I would make it to sixteen. But if I do, I want it to be a comfortable one. I light a cigarette first, and slip into my dressing gown, and make myself comfortable in bed, using the small dagger from under my pillow to open the envelope. Dear Genevieve It still catches me, even knowing I had signed my own letter that way, to see it written in someone else's hand. Neat. Written slowly? That would indicate some care. Small but easily-legible letters, heavy pressure, a leftward slant... an interesting mix of traits, and I don't credit graphology with very much, but even the least credible 'sciences' have some grains of truth. If nothing else, the neatness speaks to someone careful and patient, and perhaps keen on making a good impression. Just from a quick scan I can see the handwriting is even across the page, not growing cramped or messy toward the end of the page-- is he that careful, or just lucky? Or a second draft? Too much conjecture and I've only read the first line... Dear Genevieve, It was very nice getting your letter. To be honest, I didn't think anyone would write. I used to do a lot of desert camping, actually. The sand and the heat don't get to me, and I can deal with the emptiness for a bit, but maybe a man just gets to an age where he starts to feel the loneliness of it. Three years ago I was working on establishing the boundaries for a park, I don't know if anything came of it. Just something to protect something of the land and the birds and all, a place where campers could go out and see the stars away from all the big cities. I'm a bit hopeless in the kitchen, myself, and I wouldn't know the first thing about the finer things in life. Maybe that's the kind of thing I need a lady to teach me. I do read, though. The one hobby apart from work I've ever been able to keep up on no matter where I wind up. Gardening's tricky if you're on the desert side of town, but I bet you could pick up some good soil at the feed store, and if they don't sell it, maybe one of the farms around would give you enough to put in a windowbox with some flowers. I wouldn't know anything about what flowers you could grow out here even with the soil, and you'd need more of it if you wanted to grow vegetables, but with a raised bed you could do something. I stopped reading, leaning back into my pillow with a smile. It really is a pity the letters are all we can have... it would be nice to have someone to garden with, and my new correspondant seems to know something about doing it in this climate. Then again, I couldn't even put in a window-box on the base without drawing raised eyebrows, and I definitely don't have room to put in a real garden, and I just don't have the time off-base to start... And, of course, one look at me and everything would fall apart. Ah well. What to respond to first, though? Camping is right out, I have no knowledge on the subject and no inclination to sleep outdoors with the bugs and the sand everywhere. Well, the stargazing aspect sounds lovely. The birdwatching-- how many birds are there in the desert? I suppose there are some, I hear them sometimes. So odd to think that things live out there, real animals. The birdwatching could be nice, anyway. I could survive a little hike, maybe. Not that I am actually going anywhere with him. I can ask what it is like. I'm rather more keen to ask about books, actually-- I can close out the letter thanking him for the advice on gardening, even if I can't use it, but I must ask about books. It was the ad's promise of a 'well-read professional' that compelled me, especially a fellow fish out of water. All right, as long as I don't invest myself emotionally, this could be a very pleasant experience. A little intellectual back and forth, a little light flirtation here and there. A little connection with someone who isn't a backwards oaf or an outright psychopath. For as long as it lasts, I should just have fun with him.
I really liked this, and I can't wait for the next chapter :)
Oh Anne, your writing always amazes me! I'm so happy to see this! Please go on writing this!
Yessss. I love your stories. I look forward to where it'll go. And I hope Miss Pauling finds someone who's not certifiably insane, in the end. Hehe. May I make a request? If not in this story, then in a standalone fill, could we see Sniper/Spy correspondence sex? I've never seen it done, but I feel that if anyone could pull it off, it'd be you.
Oh God, I'm so ready for this fic to make me cry. The tears are already lined up neatly in my tear ducts, ready to flow.
First thing first: asdfghjkl; aw thank you everyone, and I hope not to disappoint! ---/-/--- Ch.III- SNIPER ---/-/--- no space for a garden at the moment, and I am afraid that if I put a small one in, I should be called out of town with no one to look after it in my absence! I do so hope that changes, now that I have someone knowledgeable to plumb for information. Tell me about what you are reading, then, and we'll forget gardening for the moment and come back to it another time. I always like to know what someone reads for pleasure, I find it is a very good indication of the type of man he is. With all my affection, Genevieve I read over the last paragraph and a half a second time, and the sign-off another three. She wrote back. I didn't make a complete ass of myself, she wrote back. She called me someone knowledgeable, she closed with affection-- all of it, even, and that's a step up from just 'sincerely'. Knowledgeable, that one thought sticks in my head... just holding up her writing and mine I can't sound smart, I mean I know I don't... I don't phrase things all that well, or at least not elegant, and every sentence she writes seems that. Well I am knowledgeable, at least when it comes to living in an arid climate, and even though I didn't grow up in a desert, I've spent enough time out in them, and anyway a brutal enough summer turns a lot of good grassland dry and you learn how to use your water for what's important. I'm knowledgeable about a lot of things I'm never gonna tell her about, for that matter, but there's a difference between having knowledge-- which I do-- and sounding knowledgeable, which I never much thought I did. I wonder where she's from. I wonder what she's like. It doesn't matter much, I'm not hung up on looks and if I'm lucky neither is she, but I wish I had a face to picture or a voice to imagine. Wait, hold up, don't ask any questions you wouldn't answer yourself, sport... Maybe hold off on looks, get a few more letters in. Definitely hold off on 'where you from's. Long as I keep getting replies back, I reckon we've got time to get to all that. I just wonder how a worldly-sounding girl with some travel behind her winds up in a dump like Teufort. Even I don't think that town's much to write home about, and I'm from nowhere. Hell, I'm from a couple dozen clicks outside of nowhere, and it's not like I don't know I come across as a dumb ocker sometimes and now there's this woman in town who writes me, and where's she from? How do people even end up here? Would I know her if I saw her in town? I could drive up from the base on the weekend and look around, see if anyone seems... dunno, too out-of-place there. Not like I'd even say anything if I did, I mean what if I was wrong? When I've got a reply to take down to outgoing mail, the Scout's there, with his monthly stack of letters to his mum and brothers. Well, the brothers aren't a monthly affair, really, he usually doesn't get 'em all at once, less there's a reason. Dunno if it's an American holiday or a Catholic one, then. His mum he writes to regular. "Hey." He nods, dropping his handful of envelopes into the box. "Writing, huh?" "Yeah." "Home?" I shrug, non-committal as I can be, and slip it in before he can see it, but he isn't even trying. "Yeah, that's cool. I'm writing home. And then all my brothers 'cause Ma says I oughtta keep in touch with 'em and she can't keep track of who knows what and they need to hear I'm still alive sometimes. Not like they don't all still live on the same block practically and I still got two older brothers who ain't moved out of her house, but whatever." "Yeah? Well, guess you got them beat, then." "Hell yeah. I got my own place." He nods again, bouncing a little on his feet. The whole team's seen the place, we crowded into that little apartment when he first rented it for a housewarming. He probably could've afforded better even on a scout's salary, but I think he sends most his pay to his mum. What he doesn't have is a car, though-- and every time I hear his story about how he lost his license, I swear it gets longer, but it gets more entertaining, so none of us call him out on it-- so when we get cycled out to any base that's further from town, he doesn't get home 'til the weekend. Those of us with wheels don't mind giving him a lift once or twice, when it's the weekend, but there's not a single one of us who'd make the long drive every damn night when there's a bed for him on the base. "I figure it's a good thing anyway." He continues, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking up at me. "I mean, there's news you can't ask your ma to pass on to the guys, right? Like you can't say 'Hey, Ma, tell Gary for me, I got laid last night!', you just can't." "Right." I roll my eyes. "Lucky for you you haven't gotten laid lately." "Shut up. Women around here are just intimidated, 'cause I'm a really successful guy who's athletic and good-lookin' and they just aren't ready for all their dreams to come true." "Must be that. Well, I'm off. See you at dinner." He grumbles to himself a little more, and I head down to the kitchen to get something underway. My turn to. She said she likes cooking. I probably couldn't impress her on that front. Well, at least the team's easy to please. Open can, apply heat, could feed this lot in your sleep...
Ch.IV- SPY ---/-/--- Dear Genevieve, Guess I'll start by answering your last question and if I run out of things to answer working my way up, I'll figure out some questions for you. I like poetry. Novels, too, I've got the patience, I just like poetry, the kind where you get swept up in the language of it enough so you really see it. I'm fond of Kipling, and I'm fond of Frost, and Byron, and... I don't know, I haven't found one I hated yet. I hope you get your garden someday. I'd say I hope you get it someplace nicer than here, but I think I'd miss hearing from you if you went too far. I just got your second letter and already it's become the highlight of my week just to read it. I get a fair enough bit of free time, and I'm fine, I eat well enough even if I can only manage to make a couple things. Lucky for me I'm not terribly discriminating when it comes to the food I cook myself. What does a lady with a sense of refinement do for fun out in Teufort, anyway? I don't mean any offense with that, I hope you don't take it that way, I only mean I wondered what the place has to offer, I wouldn't doubt you're a little more sophisticated than most around here. Apparently there are square dances every third Saturday, a friend of mine goes but I never have. Mostly maybe I just wondered if you dance. If you did, I might find myself a little less reluctant to learn how. I let out a sigh, the smoke curling up to the ceiling on the force of my breath, the letter fluttering to rest over my heart. Poetry! Ah, but what am I going to do? Not dance with him, that much is certain. Let us trip over each other's big feet on the dance floor? And definitely not square dancing, anything the Engineer describes as 'good wholesome down-home fun' isn't for me. And not slow dancing, oh merde, what if I were taller than he? The crick in my neck from trying to put my head on his shoulder-- well, it's a ridiculous prospect, but it's less horrible than imagining him blanching and turning tail at the sight of me. The poetry, though... Yes, let's talk of poetry, how much have I missed men who talk poetry to me... I don't put my reply in with the outgoing mail, I hide it in one of the hidden pockets in my suit and drive down to the town itself. Safer to send it from town, mixed in with everyone's. If I was more patient, maybe I would arrange to pick my letters up in town as well, but then I would be hearing from him every other week instead of every week, and I am not that patient. I haven't had a love affair since Paris, and even that one was too short and sad... Satisfying from an esoteric standpoint. If I were writing my memoirs, I would want them littered with such things. Living my life, though... living my life, I want rather different things. And as dreary as Teufort undoubtedly is, any town is better than languishing on-base out at Dustbowl. The drive is just... time to think. The post office is in the back of a store whose sign reads 'Mercantile', and I feel as though I've gone back a hundred and fifty odd years looking at the facade, but inside it's... well, dusty, but not wholly un-modern. Even on the weekends I'm never free... it's such a struggle to remember who to be all the time, and the man I play in town is no different from all the men I play on the battlefield, when it comes to being a mask. The only differences is that when I take a new role on the field, it is imitation pure and simple, and when I am in a 'mercantile', I am remembering a character I've spun from whole cloth. Careful mannerisms. Masculine yet genteel. The right smile here, a warmer one there, the impression every woman in town must have of a too-polite would be lothario. The hand just so with its cigarette, the exact distances kept when speaking to tradespeople and fellow customers... Always work. Well, I suppose I'd be lost without it. I buy a new pair of gloves that I will never have the chance to wear. Soft, white, where will I find an event so formal? It's no wonder they've been sitting beneath the dusty glass so long, no one else has any more cause than I do for them, most have less. At least keeping them in the back of the drawer I can... Can what? Torture myself over the life I should have had? Damned if I do and if I don't, before BLU I didn't have the money, and now that I'm contracted, I lack the freedom. I don't even know what I'm saving it for... I could buy myself a lot of things when this job ends, but there are still too many things I could never buy. Peace of mind is always a payday away. The selection of cut flowers are wilted and overpriced, and I shell out for a boutonniere anyway. There is no florist, and I... I just want something that was sweet and living and green once, even if it will not be for long. What else am I going to do? I try to lift myself out of this pitying mood, glancing along the street and wondering which stranger has been writing me, which man out on a Saturday-- if any-- reads poetry and thinks of letters I send him as the highlight of his week. It's a pleasant occupation, until I slip into the only restaurant with remotely palatable fare and find their tables taken up with the RED team. The Scout, the Soldier, and the Demoman have the middle of the restaurant, and their loud, uncouth rabble fills the whole place, but I would rather go plant myself among them than think about sitting at the counter. Oh no. There are four stools along the wide 'U' of the counter that do not have their backs to the front door. Two of them, on the right of the restaurant, have their backs to the hall leading to the restrooms. The other two have a wall, and the lefthand corner is preferable, the stool can be angled to give a nearly full view of the restaurant, and offers some protection. That stool is taken by the RED Sniper. That filthy van-dwelling, piss-hoarding lunatic! There's no seat left in the place that doesn't put me in a weak position against at least one RED now, but for him to have the one seat where a man can be almost absolutely sure he won't be attacked! I could stand losing it to my fellow Spy, he would share my concerns when it comes to seating, but the Sniper... I make a quick order to go and debate the least unacceptable place to eat it. A bench along the boardwalk with the shops that would have catered to tourists if any came out this way? The park? My car? It would be cold by the time I got back to the base, is that really the only place I can eat? I glare daggers at the Sniper throughout my wait.
Wonderful chapter as always. I really like how different the letters are: Spy's so elegant and to the point, Sniper's so awkward and genuine. I also like how you point out the obvious difference between a "cool" life and a "happy" one, and how Spy want to be happy while his pride and vanity are all about looking good. This is an interesting part of his characterization too: one the one hand he is very sympathetic ("poor guy just wants to be happy! Feeling lonely sucks!"), on the other he comes aross as abrasive ("take that stick out of your butt, Judgey McJudgerson"). It's much more entertaining than reading about a flawless character. ...Besides that, I'm a big fan of the Belligerent Sexual Tension trope, so I always enjoy reading about my OTP bitching and hissing at each other ^^ I also liked the part with Scout. He is a very entertaining dumbass, and I loved the implication that all the teammates are friends (or, at least, on friendly enough terms that they go to a teammate's housewarming off the clock). I have a bit of crit, too. It seems a little weird to me that Sniper and Spy are already showing open affection to each other after only one or two letters. It's not all that implausible (they are both very lonely, and Sniper lacks experience whereas Spy is simply playing along and acting a fantasy), but... I dunno, I just feel like it's moving a little too fast. Also, Spy is a masked mercenary, and we know that in canon civilians from nearby towns are well aware that RED and BLU is just a cover for a war. Unless he is wearing a disguise, it seems very weird to me that the general impression of him is "a too polite would be lothario" when they know that the guy is involved with gunfights and explosions. I think it would work much better if civilians are perplexed that Spy comes across as so polite and charming and harmless despite his violent activities (you could allude to the Smissmas comic and say that they give him a pass because he saved their children. You could even say that, because of that, they are much more tolerant of BLU than of RED, and they treat BLU Spy better than the RED Team).
>>10 Thank you! I am very gratified to have my fic get, for lack of better word, examined (and wish I had thought about how the events of Smissmas would affect the way the town views BLU vs. the way they view RED...) (how the MALE civilians see Spy, by the way, is very different from how the FEMALE civilians see Spy... and they're the ones Spy is out to impress with a certain image) With the letters, I meant for it to remain at a casual flirtation but with hints of a little infatuation, with Sniper being starved for affection and Spy indulging in a fantasy and thinking nothing 'real' will come of it, but my fatal flaw seems to be that I can hardly wait for them to get mushy over each other... so that probably is my bad. ---/-/--- Ch. V- SNIPER ---/-/--- I don't dance, no. To be honest, I don't do much of anything in town. I never really expected I would turn into such a homebody! I'd let myself get into something of a rut, before I saw your ad and though 'why not?'. I am a little in a rut still, but I do think I enjoy it more now than I once did. It is nice to have someone to think about, even someone I may never meet. I was very flattered, to think I might brighten your day just by having written. Your week, even! I won't pretend it didn't go to my head just a little, but I think it can be excused. After all, I'm sure there are plenty of women who indulge their vanity more often than I do. I was curled up with a book of poetry just the other night, and didn't even know then to think about you while I read it. It was Desbordes-Valmore, I don't know if you've read her. Melancholy, sometimes, but I go back to it often, when I find I am in the mood for nothing else. That is one of the chief attractions of poetry, don't you think? The number of times you can read the same verse and feel it as keenly as ever, when you cannot strike at your own heart as truly as some long-dead poet's pen? And then even reading something sad soothes you, for knowing someone understood you even then. Who do you go back to, when no other writer can speak to you? With all my affection, Genevieve I wrote back immediately, after just the first read-through, with a new kind of fire to respond. It had seemed easy enough before, to list poets I liked, liked a lot even. This was different-- it was one thing to talk literary tastes, and I could have carried out a good long conversation on the works of Kipling without coming across a fool. I re-read Kipling often enough. I don't think Kipling's at the very soul of me. I used to, when I was a boy who'd never traveled, and had grown up reading his stories. John O'Brien. Leon Gellert. Paterson. I think maybe those are closer, but it's one thing to say you like reading a thing and another to say it's a part of you. I'm writing it all out anyway, though, and wishing I'd heard of her poet. It's just... it's something, to be given any kind of key to the heart of her, beyond all the 'you sound nice' at the surface. I take the letter in and send it off only to find I'm earlier than last week and have more time to kill than I'd wanted while the Pyro bangs around the kitchen working on dinner. I wind up watching the little chess tournament going on at the table. It's the first time I've ever seen Scout play-- and from the amount of coaching Heavy's giving him, maybe it's his first time playing at all, but he's holding his own against Demo, anyway. The Spy yawns theatrically before rising from his seat. "I don't think it's worth lining up to play the winner, unless you don't care for a challenge." He shrugs. "Don't really play the game myself." I shake my head. "Never saw much point in it. Need a good opponent for chess, yeah?" "I prefer a good one." "Yeah, well, I'm always out on my lonesome. Don't mind playing cards or dice with the blokes every now and then, but no real point studying chess. Can't blame it on the luck of the draw when you forget the rules after three months in the wilderness." I laugh. Next to me, Heavy's smacking himself in the face as Scout and Demo both start making up new rules, but the two of them are laughing over it, even if the big guy's ready to bust a capillary by the time they've got to clear the game away to eat. The first half of the week's been rough, but I'm hoping for a turnaround. Or at least for the bloody Spy over on BLU to give me a rest and bother someone else. I mean, ours is insufferably smug some of the time, but at least he's ours. For that matter, our Scout's a hyperactive idiot some of the time, our Demo's a lousier drunk than I think he used to be, our Soldier's a raving lunatic and our Pyro and the doc give him a run for his money, and when Heavy's not accidentally knocking you to the ground with affection he looks like he's contemplating murdering the whole team, and Truckie spends more time on his work than is healthy, but they're still all... ours. I'm no picnic myself, but we're all one team. They're mates, I don't have to like 'em every day to love the bastards. Maybe that's how the BLU team stands each other, but frankly it stretches the imagination. I don't have any beef with anyone off-hours, except last weekend their Spy gave me the stink-eye out of nowhere and Monday he started up coming after me like no one else existed. Hardly seems professional. At least the rest of them, I don't have to think about when I'm not working. Dinner is blackened to hell, but it's pretty good. Actually a nice char, if a little aggressive. The roasted carrots take a little... peeling at, to get to something edible, but once you chip away some of the burnt bits, it's fine. At least when Pyro burns the food it's cause he's enjoying himself, when anyone else does it, it's just bad cooking. I'm already looking forward to next week, and maybe it is a little bit pathetic... All right, no maybe about it. It's just nice to talk to a woman-- well, write to one. And that's my problem, I can't talk to women. If they think I'm attractive enough, or they've just got an itch to scratch, I mean it's not like I'm hopeless in the sack. I don't think I am. It just falls apart when I open my damn mouth. I must write better than I talk-- must be easier when she's not looking at me waiting for me to say something, when she's off somewhere else and I can just focus on getting it right. The Spy pulls me aside into the kitchen after dinner and places the steel wool in my hand. "Do me a favor?" "You gotta be joking, mate. No one trades cleaning up after Pyro's dinners. You got nothing I want." "Oh? I could tell Scout about your lady, and he would want to know if she had a friend for him. Don't bother-- You suddenly start sending out two letters a week? Lose yourself in contemplation over meals? I have been there--" "Yeah, we've all seen." He scowls back at me, crossing his arms. "Just trade me for tomorrow night, I can't deal with the burnt on... everything. Or, of course, I could tell Medic, and he would make you watch the filmstrips." He shudders-- even more theatrical than his earlier yawn-- and fixes me with a look. "Sniper, believe me, the last thing you want is to watch the filmstrips. You won't eat for a week." "Oh, fine, ya bloody baby." I shake my head. "As if I care what you tell the team, they'll all think you're full of it anyway." I don't honestly think he'd do it-- well, maybe he would if I pissed him off, but the washing up isn't the big deal he makes it out to be, he just weasels out of it every week one way or another. Tomorrow night he'll figure out a way to get Scout to do it for him, next weekend he'll win a week off chores in the poker game, and so on. Anyway, I doubt it'd come to much if they found out. Everyone'd ask if I had pictures of this girl, then everyone would forget it. As long as they didn't find out how I met-- or, didn't meet-- her, can't see them taking the piss for long when someone else is always going to have something more fun to mock. Dishes gives me time to think with no one interrupting, besides. So, no reason to drag myself to the square dances, that's good news as far as I'm concerned. A poetess to look up, maybe this weekend I'll hit the library. And affection, which I can't see myself getting tired of, even if it's just how she signs letters to people she's written more than only once. All right.
(captcha says 'obstinately', apropos for this chapter...) ---/-/--- Ch. VI- SPY ---/-/--- Dear Genevieve, I guess I'm safe staying away from the dance hall, then. I feel like I ought to thank you for that, it's practically an act of mercy. Down at the bottom of the page, I'm copying down a poem for you. It's from John O'Brien. When you asked what I go back to, well, he's the first. I like Kipling and I like Frost, but the places they write about aren't home to me. I've never stopped by the woods on a snowy evening and I've never been to India, but I've been a lot of places far from where I'm from, and the birds don't sound the same anywhere but home. He copied out a poem for me? That's... that is sweet. It's all sweet. I've never thought about missing birdsong... I have missed sights and sounds and tastes and smells, and the kind of men who would whisper sweet things to me on a glass of wine and the promise of secrecy, but I have never come over all nostalgic for the birds... Maybe there is something about a man who does. I should think less of that kind of simple honesty, I think... my career is built on thinking little good about simple honesty. But it's just sweet, and damn it, it is nice to be the recipient of it. I go back to the letter with a smile I recognize and accept as idiotic. Before I get to that, though, I was wondering if I could ask you something. It's a little personal and maybe it's a little bold, and you don't have to send me a picture or anything-- I'm not thinking you're the kind of girl who'd send a picture after a couple letters and I wouldn't ask you for a racy one even if I was asking at all! I just wish I had a face to picture, even if I picture you all wrong at first, and I thought maybe you could just tell me a little what you look like. Elsewise I'm likely to spend next weekend thinking every girl who passes me on the street could be you, and anyway, I just thought it would be nice to have a little idea. I put the letter down, feeling slightly ill. What I look like? Ha! Well, no, he didn't ask for a photograph, I could... I could say something. Tell him I am ugly anyway, he might believe it. Why would a pretty woman answer a newspaper ad? I pick over my words carefully in writing a reply, before digging into the back of my vanity drawer, past the neat rolled-up gloves, past the aftershave lotion I can never use during the week-- and how beastly does it feel to never have a clean shave! But the scent of it would be a dead giveaway on the field, and I don't like a close shave without-- all the way to the small vial of perfume oil. Too feminine to wear even on the weekends, of course, but I don't own it to wear in the first place. I own it because after a day of sneaking through sewers, when even a long shower doesn't get the awful stench out of my nostrils, I can daub some on a cotton ball and smell something nice. Lavender and sandalwood alone I wouldn't call too womanly, though the team doubtless would. The wisteria pushes it over, though. Still, it's better than the aftershave lotion for clearing a bad smell out of my head. It is perfect, for dabbing lightly onto correspondence. Too soon, I think, for a lady to start sealing with a kiss, but now that my gentleman of mystery has asked for a description, I might be so bold as to scent my reply, just a tiny bit. Maybe I cannot be a beautiful woman, but I can smell like one. Oil makes for an intimate enough fragrance-- a spray would cling to me too long and spread itself too far around me, but by the time I meet anyone at all, there won't be any floral scent on me, I think. I was neat with it. Well-- that had been my momentary hope. Of course instead of an empty base, I would open the door and find the Scout poised to knock. "I don't like company." I growl, as he pushes right past me and into my room. My room! The nerve! "I know, that's why I never get to come in here!" He says, crossing to my vanity. It was obtained relatively cheaply in town, and with a pitcher and a basin, it means I can do everything I have to in the mirror here, instead of going maskless in the locker room. With the pitcher and basin moved over to the top of the dresser, it makes for a good desk. Still, I hate having it open to inspection-- to ridicule. I've done all I can, anyway, to make sure that if my sanctity was disturbed, I could pass. There are a couple of pictures stuck into the frame of the mirror, of women modeling lingerie, and the Scout bypasses everything else to snag one of them. "Nice." He waves it. "Look, anyway, I didn't come here to rifle through whatever cheap, sad spank material you keep around." "Good to know." I say, coldly. I'm careful in folding my arms-- I want to radiate the disapproval, but I don't want to crinkle the letter in my blazer. "Can you believe the guys all got up early this morning and left for town without me, though? And I know you're never with us and you got a car, so..." "So you thought the best way to ask me for a lift was to come into my room and piss me off?" He shrinks a little. "Uh... Just being friendly?" "All right, but if you don't get a ride back with the Sniper, the Engineer, or the Medic, you're not getting a ride back at all." "You're the best!" He grins, racing back out the door. I slide the picture back into place with a wistful sigh. A magazine clipping, it would be no good to ever try sending that in a letter, and anyway, it served its purpose today. The model is soft, and lovely. My attraction is an aesthetic one, at least more that than sexual, as it is with all the pictures I've amassed, thrown out, replaced... not just women, though I collect a particular type of those, but homes and gardens and cityscapes as well. The mirrorframe is perfect for sticking a few underdressed beauties, should a teammate come calling, but there's a whole scrapbook hidden under the floorboards under my bed, with a life I won't ever have. It's a pathetic hobby-- more pathetic than this fantasy romance-- but it's mine. The vacations I don't go on, the pied-a-terres I don't live in, the beautiful things outside my grasp. And in between the pages now, letters from a man who is also outside my grasp. I don't mind it-- none of it was ever going to be more than a fantasy, and there's no sense missing what you weren't going to have. Well, I mind it a little. But make-believe is good enough. "All right, hop in." I tell the Scout, when I meet him down at the car. "But you spend the ride silent." "I can be quiet." He rolls his eyes, and at least he climbs into my car carefully, even if it's only to make a point. I drop him off at the little park, where he can run around and hit on women, and run around again when their husbands show up, and I park in the little lot near the mercantile and post office, and try to imagine. Will the scent stay on the paper long enough to reach him? I have never experimented... it must, mustn't it? Will he notice? I like to imagine he does, even if his face is a blank to me as well. I like to imagine he appreciates the detail. Maybe he keeps the letters in an office drawer-- what his office is like, I hardly know, I didn't know Teufort was even home to professional types. Tied with a ribbon? No, perhaps that is the way a woman keeps her love letters, not a man his... Just the drawer, then, to have close at hand. I don't see anyone 'professional' in town. Then again, on a Saturday, what measure is a professional? He could wear a suit every day of the week and want nothing more than to give it up for two days out of seven. He could be wandering around in a hawaiian shirt for all that I know, although that does seem a little gauche... Walking past the tiny park again, I spot our Medic on a bench, with two bags of peanuts, a host of pigeons, and one ground squirrel. The Scout is in competition with his opposite number, though the girl they're competing over is ignoring them-- and I can hardly blame her. I make for the library, hoping to give the rest of the RED team time to clear out of the restaurant if they're there again. Instead, I find the Sniper there, of all places. "You couldn't go be homeless somewhere else?" I hiss. "You couldn't fuck on off?" He whispers, jumping back from the shelf he'd been looking at. "I think you're lost, bushman. The books with the pretty pictures and short words are on the other side of the room." "Yeah? Well-- Where do they keep the books on being a snooty arse? Think that's the section you're looking for." "I know exactly what I am looking for and where to find it!" I snap. "Guess you must have being a snooty arse down already!" He sneers. "Shh!" The little half-blind librarian admonishes us, tapping a sign on the front desk. 'NO MERCENARY BUSINESS', it reads. "You're in my way." I whisper, after we both apologize awkwardly. "You're in my way." "Just go the other way, you're standing in front of the books." He blocks the shelf a little while longer out of sheer obstinacy, before disappearing. What is that man even doing here? Two weekends in town in a row? Why isn't he out in the desert living out of a van and shooting at lizards, or whatever it is he normally does?
There is no part of this I don't love.
This whole thing is brilliant, I am excited for more - and this last chapter in particular is funny as hell.
Ch.VII- SNIPER ---/-/--- I am sorry to say I am not a beautiful woman. A little too tall, with no figure to speak of. I would say I am a handsome one, as long as I am being asked an opinion of myself, though it is possible that I flatter myself. My hair is short, and dark, my eyes are blue... I think for the most part, I could be anyone, though, there is nothing special to say 'Oh, that is her!'. Well... nothing I am quite ready to disclose. You should tell me more about yourself, and then I can spot you instead. I picture something different every time I try to think of you, I ought to do my own narrowing down. I enjoyed the poem you copied out for me, by the way. It was so sweet and so optimistic... something I have needed to re-read a few times this week, to reassure my own belief in the goodness of the world, by the way. It helped. With all my affection, Genevieve I feel a little weird about sitting around with my nose stuck in an envelope, but it smells like her perfume-- well, and a bit like ink and paper, but I've never minded ink and paper, and it's a sweet, soothing kind of flowery smell. Blue eyes... well, I am a sucker for a pair of blue eyes, but really, what man isn't? ... What constitutes a 'handsome' woman instead of a pretty one? If it's a moustache, well, hell, it wouldn't be my first time, but she doesn't sound like another Aussie. More like a... like an anything-but-another-Aussie. So no moustache. I've still got no idea how to picture her face, but I could imagine her from behind, sort of a not-too-curvy shape in a summer dress, dark hair curling at the back of her neck. A pale brunette, reckon, with blue eyes. When I can't get the scent of her perfume on the paper any longer, I stick the letter with the others and get to writing back, but the memory of it sticks with me. The real trouble, of course, is in giving an honest description without accidentally going and saying 'I've got a face like a horse', because yeah, I'd like her to be attracted to me, or the idea of me. Letters are definitely easier, for that. Getting to all the real stuff, the honest stuff, without tripping over my tongue in a conversation, my feet on a dance floor, or my face. I mean, compared to some of the blokes out here I'm a damn beauty queen, but I'd rather get my good qualities across on paper first anyway just in case I don't measure up to... I don't know. To anybody, I guess. Teufort isn't exactly Hollywood, it's not like there's any Marlon Brando lookalikes wandering around town to stack myself up against, but still. How do I describe me? What's the most flattering version of honest I've got here? I grab my shaving mirror. Peeling sunburn, chapped lips, and... hell, when'd I start going gray, then? Ah, it's just a little bit. Anyway, I'm not that bad, really, just never did know how to talk myself up. I muddle through it anyway, give it a second draft, and make it down for a quick late dinner before I hit the hay. The first round of the morning is... not good. Well, it's great for the team, we're winning. All except me, with my new job as resident pincushion. I guess I could be happy the Spy's letting the whole BLU team suffer just so he can take his problem out on me, because I don't think Truckie's sentry's gone down once, but I am pissed right off, and when I get pissed right off, the Spy gets pissed right on. Not directly, of course. Still, the little girlish shriek is satisfying. "That's what you get!" I holler. He slaps me. Which is... unexpected. Usually there's more knives involved. "You filthy pig!" "You bloody nuisance, what did ya think I'd do? Sit still and get stabbed again?" I point my kukri at him. "If you weren't such a nuisance yourself--" "Since when?" "Since the weekend before last!" Before last? I didn't do a damn thing to him the weekend before last. And I only made a little nuisance of myself last weekend because he was being such an uptight, nasty, self-absorbed... Spy! "What the bloody hell is your problem?!" "There's a long list, but don't worry, you're on it." He snaps, trying to parry my blade away with his. Not the most effective maneuver, but I don't mind a little struggle before I dispatch him. "Aw, did I get blood on your suit?" I sneer, holding him up as he gasps out a last breath, lips red with it, the rest of his face-- the rest of what shows-- going white. He jerks a couple times, before I can pull my knife out and drop him, but it's worth the bother of having his dead weight in my arms to know he's not right behind me with that watch. The afternoon's a little more even. He does his job, for better or worse, and I can get on with doing mine.
I like the banter. In TF2 it's all about the banter. It's rather funny how both the Spy and Sniper like to have a professional appearance, but their taunts and one-liners are just as silly and vulgar as the rest of the team's.
Ch.VIII- SPY ---/-/--- [/i]Dear Genevieve, Oh, I like tall girls. I'm a bit of a beanpole, myself, actually. Reckon that might make us a good match. If we ever did run into each other, I mean, in the flesh. I'm not really anything special to look at, I don't think. Maybe you guessed as much, me putting out an advert and all. At least I'm nothing especially hideous, right? Just sort of there, a not-so-bad-when-he-smiles kind of face. I've got brown hair, and sideburns I try and keep neat. I don't like to get too hard to maintain, I just stay trimmed enough that I can clean up nice when I've got to. Mind, I'm not saying I'm anything spectacular to behold when I do, but I like to be presentable when I'm around people. So I guess that's what you look for... an average sort of man, except for where he's a bit too gangly and he's got big hands. [/i] I stop to read over it all again. Neatly-trimmed sideburns-- well-groomed, but masculine. Big hands? Very promising, but it's definitely too soon to ask any more questions in that direction. And tall. Even if I never have the opportunity to place my head on his shoulder, it's encouraging to think we wouldn't look ridiculous. I looked for the poet you mentioned in the library weekend last. I didn't find her-- you said it was a lady, I was fairly certain, and I went back and re-read your letter from before to be sure. The library? And I missed him? Oh... such a pity. Not that I would have known him-- and he would not have known me! But I might have enjoyed my last trip to the library if I had run into someone more tolerable... This time, after I drop off my letter at the post office, the team catches me before I can get to my car. It's odd seeing them all together on the weekend... and a little ominous. "What is it?" "You're not going back to the base already!" The Demoman objects. "I was." "You can't!" The Scout shakes his head. "We're going out tonight. Drinks!" There is a general rabble of agreement to this, with hooting and laughter and back slapping. "The whole team!" The Engineer nods. "Real good night out, when's the last time the whole team had a good night out together?" "I wouldn't know. I have never gone." "See!" "It's called male bonding, maggot, and it's mandatory!" "It's not mandatory, Soldier." The Medic sighed, pushing at his glasses. "But it would be a good thing, I think. It would give us all a chance to unwind together, loosen up and get to know everyone outside of work. You ought to join us." I turn to my car. "Thank you, no." "You gotta! Come on, Spy, you never do fun stuff!" The Scout whines. "We all want you to stick around, you know, be one of the guys!" "I am not 'one of the guys'." "Sure you are!" He crows, and at least with my back to them, no one notes the flicker of distaste I can't hold back, at that, and the enthusiasm the rest of the team shows for the notion. "I don't like staying out so late." "It's not even a workday tomorrow!" "I don't like drinking in public." "Well, we could always use a sober driver." The Engineer chuckles. "... I will meet you at the bar." I sigh. "But I leave when I want to." The Scout stamps and whistles, and they let me go, the Medic providing directions to the bar they've chosen and the time they plan to be there. I drive back to the base, not that I have much time there, but it's still time I have to myself, and an empty bathroom to myself before I drive back, where I allow myself a minute just to admire my own clean shave from the morning. The bar is... what I expected, really. A little rougher and rowdier than I might have liked, but as long as I stay sober, I retain an advantage over the crowd, and as long as I keep sipping tonic water from a martini glass, no one much notices. I watch the team get drunker and happier for a couple of hours, and... they could be worse, really. It's true if I have to be here, I am glad it is with the whole team, if only for mostly selfish reasons. Any trouble, and they will all be too glad to handle it-- and against civilians, even drunk they would be capable-- and I would be free to slip out the back way unmolested. They're... fun, I suppose. Still, when the tonic waters start to make a noticeable impact on my bladder, not even their combined efforts could keep me. "I am going home, if anyone needs a lift." I say, getting to my feet. "The nightshishtull-- the nighshushstill-- The evening's in its infancy!" "Be that as it may." "C'mon!" The Scout whines, taking up the Soldier's argument and encouraging the others to join in. "It's sober and you're early!" "I am one drive to the base away from wanting a restroom. Anyone who needs a ride and can promise his intestinal fortitude for the trip can come with me now." "You-- You're gonna drive... all the way... back to the base... for a piss?" Our Sniper looks up at me, incredulous. Scout laughs. I burn. "I don't care for public restrooms, so yes." "Hell, you don't have to use the restroom! There's an alley!" I shudder. "Bushman, you're drunk." "Come to think of it, I ain't never seen Spy piss." Scout says, still laughing. "I bet there's something wrong with it." "Mangled in a piece of industrial machinery?" The Engineer guesses. "Born deformed." Scout shakes his head. "Like a circus freak." "Really bad snakebite?" "Chupacabra bite!" The Demoman corrects-- well, to use the word loosely. "Shot off by a jealous husband!" Soldier bangs the table. "Stop it all of you, there's nothing wrong with it." The Medic groans, rolling his eyes. "He's perfectly normal." And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, he turns to shout at the girl behind the bar, one arm slung around my neck. "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS MAN'S PENIS!" My skin crawls, and my stomach turns, and I just want to be out of there. I shove the Medic off and storm out. I can hear him start a drunken rambling lecture on shy bladders, but I don't care. They'll be too drunk by the time they fall into bed, to remember past their hangovers in the morning that they mortified me tonight... and it isn't as though I care about the girl behind the bar of course, it isn't that I care about anyone in this godforsaken town, except for the one man who only knows me on paper. I just never should have agreed to go out... I'll remember this, next time they ask me. Never go on a bender with the team. It can never end well. There is nothing that strange about it, really... there isn't. Plenty of people don't perform intimate functions with an audience, or standing at a trough in a room with sawdust all over the floor to catch-- ugh!-- spillover. So what if I want to go to the closest thing I have to a home, in privacy? So what if I want to sit down and rest my forearms on my thighs and hang my head and hate my life? No. No, let's have none of that. Let's remind ourselves of better things. Angels keep their sure watch o'er us: and another laughing chorus Flings a vesper blessing round the world, because the world is good. I repeat it just mentally, until I believe it, and it doesn't fix the humiliating evening out, but it does help. A good thing I have already thanked my gentleman, none of the poems I had already committed to memory are quite so reassuring. I hope I do not have to put him off... it hasn't been long enough for that. I head to bed, after washing up one last time and brushing my teeth. No, I'll be able to figure a way out of it, if it comes to something tricky. Send along some token and apologize that I have no photos. I could keep this going a while that way. It really is nice to be talked to the way he does me. Or, written to.
There's always something special in the post when you deliver it, Anne.
I just keep re-reading these to feel that wonderful painful twist in my chest...My heart has never felt so simultaneously broken and warmed.
Can't wait for more.
"and when I get pissed right off, the Spy gets pissed right on." TF2 QUOTE OF THE YEAR!
Thanks, all! ---/-/--- Ch.IX- SNIPER ---/-/--- wish I had seen you there. Even if I never would have known who you were, I wish that I had seen you. It would have been so much nicer than the absolute boor I did run into while I was there, anyway. It's so funny, I went looking for more of what you had mentioned as well, even knowing I would have little luck, in a library that small. I think of you frequently and fondly, you know. Just having someone I can pour myself out to honestly in a letter once a week, it makes a difference in my life. I sometimes imagine the way your hand would feel around mine, when I am waiting for my coffee in the morning and the day looks too long ahead of me. When it's very early, before the day has had a chance to get baking hot, when I most would like a hand to keep mine warm, that is when I like to think of you most. That must sound terribly intimate... When I first wrote back, it was to be something light, some silly whim of mine, a little pen-friendship, and now here I am, thinking about your hands in the morning! Holding you in my heart, Genevieve I let out a sigh, my finger traveling over her name, just barely touching the paper. Maybe we've both been lonely too long. When the closest in years I've been to getting laid is smelling a woman's perfume on a letter, I mean, that's an indication, definitely been lonely too long. Well, first thing's first, and let's not think too much about that last bit 'til I've got to, because my mind could definitely go places with... with the idea of someone thinking about my hands first thing in the morning. I mean, if I'm thinking about someone's hands first thing in the morning, my own are usually doing something about it, that's all. I fumble the pen I was reaching for at that thought. A woman-- even if she is one I can barely picture-- going to town on herself and with me on her mind. Does she ever? I mean, women need to get off bad as anyone. Maybe not as often, I don't know. I mean, they can't get blue balls, but... I set letter writing aside for a minute, because with the problem I've got cropping up, I wouldn't be able to walk inside to post it. Not without drawing some attention and some ridicule. It's easier to focus after a rough, fast wank, to not get carried away with hazy, half-pictured thoughts. It feels a little dirty, sitting down to write just after zipping myself up and cleaning my hands off. The weird feeling that she'd know somehow. Would it bother her? Flatter her? Damn it, why's it so hard to tell with women? I mean, sometimes she seems too... old-fashioned, almost. Too elegant, but then, elegant women could be just as up for it as anyone else. I just don't want to fuck everything up assuming either way. I... I really don't want to fuck this up. I want... something. I want something, I want her, I want to talk about poetry to someone who won't say I'm a bloody pansy of a sniper if I happen to like the odd verse, I want someone in my life I can do things for. In a way I guess I do have. I just want more of her.
Something awful is going to happen. It's coming. I can't watch but I can't look away.
Ch.X- SPY ---/-/--- Dear Genevieve, Fancy that, us coming so close to running into each other and missing... Let me guess, that boor of yours... real obstinate, thinks too highly of himself, likes to cause problems for folks for no good reason... one of the mercenaries from outside town, am I right? That's where I ran into one, though I guess I thought he'd at least know how to be polite to a lady. I laugh. I wouldn't have pegged the Sniper for the type to be polite to a lady, either, but... well, aside from that, that sounds like him. Mister 'I'm a real professional, sniping is a real job, not like what you do with all your fancy equipment, I could handle myself with a wooden bow and arrow because I rely on skills and not toys'. Because throwing piss at people is so professional... I was thinking... I mean, if men are being rude to you on your weekends out, maybe I ought to have a picture, just so if I was to spot you going into the library, I'd be able to just make sure no one was there waiting to spoil your day. Actually, that sounds a bit flimsy to me. He'd probably just cause me problems, anyway, but I'd tell him to buzz off for you, if I was around. I mean, I'd tell anyone harassing a lady to buzz off even if she wasn't you, just because there's a way to behave. Oh... oh no. I suppose I knew this day was coming. I was getting ready to brush him off and everything, I just... I just wish I didn't have to. Mostly I guess I am asking for your picture. Hope it's not a bother or anything, I know last time I said I wouldn't, but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask, just if you've got a spare snapshot lying around. Nothing saucy or anything, I just have been trying to picture your smile. I know you tried to tell me you weren't pretty, but I think there's not a woman alive who isn't a little pretty when she smiles, is there? I bet I'd think you were just lovely. I just bet I would, I know it. Oh, cher... you've no idea. Could I? Trowel on enough makeup, wrap a scarf around my head, smear the lens with Vaseline and-- No. Damn it! Of course, of course not. 'You won't need your disguise kit', they told me. 'We have that all taken care of', they told me. Yes, little paper masks, beyond perfect for infiltrating the enemy. Useless for transforming myself! There's not enough Vaseline in the world to make me look... I haven't got anything... Why did I ever let that kit go? No, the storage locker is too far away, I would never be able to get it back in time to send a letter. I can't buy powder in town, people would stare, people would talk! For a friend? No. When has that ever worked for you, you idiot... Theatrical makeup or nothing-- after all, no drugstore powder is going to cover the tan lines when I take my mask off, and-- Was I really even for a second contemplating taking my mask off for this man? Even for a quick and dirty bit of trick photography, I was, I was thinking it... I sit myself down at the vanity and write out my apologies, but I dig through the drawer, past the gloves again-- and those soft white ones I'll never get to wear, they aren't even in the right size, just too nice to leave gathering dust-- to pull out not just the little vial of perfume, but a handkerchief. It's one of my nicer ones-- too nice, to take out on the field. Powder blue with scalloped edging, the little flowers around the embroidered 'G'. I knew from the start if this little affair went the way I wanted it to, I would be sending this eventually. It should hold the scent better than the envelope, anyway. There, perfect. No photograph, there's just no way to take one. Even if I had my kit with me, no way to take a pretty one. I should have brought it... I only packed what I couldn't live without, I should have known I would need it someday, even with the masks and how much room the case takes up... No, nevermind. There's a personal little token, a dash of intimate suggestion-- nothing obvious enough to be vulgar, but it plants the seeds of encouragement. And he can go on fantasizing about the kind of woman he wants to see, while I... I don't even know. I avoid every single one of the teammates that I spot in town. I've been avoiding them off the clock since last weekend, and if I am honest, once or twice I could have assisted someone on the field and I didn't. There is humiliating a person, and then there is what they did to me. I spot the Sniper in town as well-- three weekends in a row, this must be a new record for him... has he really given up that whole howling-in-the-wilderness thing of his? The man even looks like he's showered this century. Less surprisingly, he looks like he'd like to start a fight, but this time he's smart enough not to. Then again, who knows what might have happened if I'd crossed to his side of the street? The post office trip has become routine. The store itself is rarely very interesting, though they have cut flowers again-- still sad and badly wilted, and all in big bunches, but it's something to smell before moving along. And there, the display of makeup... it would do little to hide the things I would want hidden, and be more trouble than it is worth to try, and I eye it longer than I mean to anyway. I pretend to have been lost in a brief daydream and move on without buying anything. The Sniper is coming in as I am heading out, and he shoulders into me, rougher than he has any cause to do, but I don't have the energy or the inclination to push back. "That glare is rather unattractive." I toss off in passing. "You're unattractive." He sputters back after me. It really shouldn't sting... After everything else today, somehow it does.
Please keep writing Anne.... Please...
This fic is like a timebomb. I feel like any second now, everything is going to blow up! Can't wait for the rest!
God I love dramatic irony. Do go on.
I find it absolutely hilarious that the town would have 'NO MERCENARY BUSINESS' signs.
The thing that I love about a good many of your Sniper/Spy fics, Anne, is the sense of respectability you always manage to create around these two. I read so many Sniper/Spy fics (chapter fics, mind) in which sex is the absolute main priority between them, and usually the first thing to get over and done with, while the getting-to-know-you stage is secondary, sometimes almost incidental. Call me a prude - as much as a homosex-celebrating, porn-meandering member of the TF2 community can be called a prude - but I absolutely love that you so often write them as respectable and patient and cautious creatures who require something of an intellectual relationship (that does not sacrifice their individual masculinities) before a sexual relationship, and all the more true to their characters for it. For what are these two but a pair of polite and well-mannered (off the battlefield) gentlemen? Carry on.
So, instead of writing a paper that's due tomorrow I read this and now I'm at a loss because I can't stop thinking about this instead of Descartes and Aquinas... Anne, you're the best.
Thanks so much again, everyone, for reading/enjoying. Captcha, by the way, says 'verses'. Not this chapter, Captcha, but thanks for playing. ---/-/--- Ch.XI- SNIPER ---/-/--- and I am so sorry, to have nothing for you, after your request. I spend more time behind a camera than in front of one, and I could not find a single good picture of me. I hope this can satisfy you, for a little while. I'd noticed the bulk of it straight off, that clearly spoke of something more substantial than a photograph, and smuggled the whole deal back to my camper before I could be caught out with it. Our Spy's kept his mouth shut and all, since he wouldn't really gain anything by telling the whole gang, but I hadn't felt like facing the ribbing from him alone, either, with something more than just a letter in my hands and no knowing what without opening it. It's so... dainty. It's too dainty, to be trusted to my care, almost. Has that floral scent of hers, lavender and something, something sweet. The kind of thing that'd make you want to just devour the throat of a woman, not overpowering at all, if she put on just enough to make you chase after it... I don't care much about perfumey nonsense-- or I never thought I did-- but I like it. I never saw much sense in wanting to smell something fake and flowery instead of just smelling the person you were with, but when I don't have her in my arms, then... I mean, scent's intimate. About as intimate as it gets. Taste maybe's a little more, but taste is just scent on your tongue-- or scent is just taste without it-- so... Look at it that way, and her perfume's not covering up anything I could be smelling, but it's... it's an offering, it's something personal. It's as close to her as I can get. I thought maybe you would like to have it, just as a token of my affection for you, or could use it sometime, when you're thinking about me. I like the thought of you having something of mine... Kisses, Genevieve It's something of a struggle not to make a fool of myself in my reply. I don't know how well I manage. I sleep with it on the pillow-- the lavender seems to do me good, anyway, and it'll be a pity when the scent is completely gone, but there's just a little bit clinging to it in the morning. I'd been resolved last night not to do anything to spoil that, not 'til it's gone, but I tuck it into my vest pocket before the early AM scan-in-- some bloody measure to prevent 'respawn degeneration', whatever the hell that means, but I can't be too sore over it, since it means if I go down, respawn will pick up the hanky with me. It feels right having it... maybe a little silly, to think of it in terms of knights riding into tourneys with their ladies' favours, sure. Not exactly a shining-armour type, myself. I almost feel like I could be, anyway. I don't know that I'd say it brings me luck, luck's something I like to think I've trained myself out of believing in. But could be I'm just more careful for carrying it with me. Either way, the whole first round, everything goes my way. There's not a bullet that doesn't miss me, not a fight I lose, barely any shots I take myself that don't hit true. Late in the day, my luck-- such as it is-- runs low. The Spy, of course it's the bloody Spy. I don't even have time to throw a jar when I think I hear him sneaking around behind me, I accidentally smash the damn thing against the side of his face, cut my own hand up doing it. Worth it, for the way he carries on, and then the knives come out, and I'm willing to go down-- I'd rather respawn clean, being on the receiving end of my own medicine, if only for the hanky's sake-- but I'm not going down alone. We both draw blood, though not by design exactly. A double misstep lands his knife stuck hard in my shoulder and mine scrapes against a rib instead of sliding in between when his blow throws me off. Hurts like hell, but he's not having a better time of it, at least, I can see it on his face as his hand twists at the front of my vest, as we both hiss and gasp and try to regain our footing. "What..." His breath is shallow, and his eyes look glazed, even though I haven't done anything fatal-- yet. His voice is too high, he lets go of his knife completely. I try to ignore the fact that it's sticking out of my shoulder on its own pretty well, he's not staring at what he's done to me or what I've done to him, he's looking at my chest, and there's nothing wrong with my chest. "Where did you get that?" I look down, to where my vest's been tugged open and twisted in his hand, to where the corner of the handkerchief sticks out of the pocket, and I twist my kukri in him when he makes a grab for it. "None of your damn business." He shouldn't be as bad off as he is, unless he hid the damage from his last fight well, but he looks absolutely bloodless, and I swear it's just a flesh wound and he has the face of a dying man, that look that happens right when you see death coming for you, horror and resignation and the last bit of dying agony that makes death itself a pleasure. "No-- I mean, that--" He sucks in a desperate breath. "Merde! That's m-more... of a woman's handkerchief..." "This what you want to waste your last words on?" I growl, picking up his arm and folding his hand around the knife in my shoulder myself. "You put your filthy hands on what's mine again and I'll really make it painful for you, now come on!" He laughs, and just when I think he's about to wrench his knife free so we can finish it like professionals, he's a dead weight in my arms. He's still breathing, so I see to that right quick, and let myself be easy pickings for the BLU Scout when he comes running through. When I respawn, there's not so much as a speck of blood on the hanky, and it still smells as faintly-perfumed as it had first thing in the morning.
Anne. You're a hero. Please keep doing what you're doing.
Here is a look at how this chapter does NOT go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfY83jMKPA4 (skip to 1:20 if you only want the musical bit and not the dialogue) My work, of course, is much crueler before it gets kind. ---/-/--- Ch.XII- SPY ---/-/--- Dear Genevieve, I can't begin to say how happy I was, getting your last letter. I mean, I'm always happy to hear from you, but it meant a lot to me, you sending me a little thing like that just to let me have something of yours. I put it off an hour and I still don't feel ready. The Sniper? All this time, the Sniper? Some things make sense, with that. A 'professional', in Teufort of all places-- or near it-- and one a million miles from home at that, of course it... How? I talked about literature with this man, the Sniper doesn't even smell like a man who knows how to read! Wait... Does this make me the asshole in the library? That is rich... that is just... He described us both well, perhaps. I was... rude, for being off the clock. I didn't have to be 'The Spy' to him in town, even if I could not have been myself. I just... I've been falling for him. I said I wouldn't, but he was so perfect, like he knew me... like he knew everything important about me and understood enough of it. Well, he understood everything I told him. And now, of all the men in the world, the Sniper... The Sniper's handwriting, the Sniper's rambling flirtations, the Sniper's poetry and earnestness... And he has no idea. He wouldn't laugh about it if he knew, don't kid yourself, he would murder you all over again... throw everything you said back in your face, he would be cruel, if he knew... He doesn't have to know, does he? Just because I do. No, why would he ever connect the spy he thinks he knows to the sweetheart he does? I would like to see your photography someday, even if the subject's not as nice as the artist. I know a tiny bit about photography, taken a few shots, years ago-- I told you about the wildlife park, a little. I mean, I don't know if it's a park. I took some pictures of birds, though, and set out some markers and did up a little report on the place. Kind of a pity I didn't keep copies of many of the pictures, actually. I'm not saying they were art in any way, but I guess that desert was closer to home than this one. I kept a couple, of the big birds of prey, just a couple. None of the little pretty ones... Guess I couldn't imagine I'd need them. All right, so how about this: I won't ask you for your picture again, but we've been writing a few weeks now, and you've sent me something and I've got nothing to send back, the way things are. Can't send flowers through a letter-writing service, and I don't know where to send anything myself, and anyway if you had a post office box what would I do then, without a way of having them delivered direct? What if I bought you dinner? Oh, merde. What if I bought you dinner? And I'll be on my best behaviour, pull out your chair for you and everything, or maybe we'll get the booth in the back and I'll just open doors or something, I don't know. Will you? There's a little sort of cafe across from the park, and they do a decent dinner, and I'd just love to meet you face to face. You don't have to stay long. We could just have a cup of coffee and a real quick bite, so you can see if you like me all right in person. I'll be there around seven on Saturday night, anyway, if you decide you want to. I'll be in a red shirt. You could... I don't know, wear a flower so I'll know you. However people do these things. I'll stick around a while, in case you run late. I wouldn't want to miss you, if something popped up for you in the evening. How do I even reply to such a thing? He is just going to wait there for me? I can't... I can't meet him for dinner, I can't. I'll wait. Write an apology on Sunday, say I got his letter too late, that's... Oh, hell. I go out, because it's better than staying in. I go to the 'mercantile' even though I have no letter to drop off, because my feet have forgotten what I did before this became my routine. I need something... something to help salvage this mess, or to at the very least brighten my day. The can pyramid by the little shelf of cosmetics is my in. Around the corner, down to the back of the empty far aisle... I cloak, then return to kick out one of the bottom cans. In the resulting mess, the fact that I appear out of nowhere doesn't even register. I offer the flustered cashier a smile when she comes darting out to help the stockboy with the cans, and I bend to pick up the scattering of lipstick tubes and pressed powders. A few cracked cases among the lot, but someone else can deal with it later, she doesn't stop me from putting them back on the little shelves. Palm. Misdirect. Steal. The girl too rattled and flattered to notice, when I tell her a pretty girl shouldn't have to bend down to pick up all these cans. I feel sharper for having done it, and safer. I feel so much safer... the tiny weight in my pocket, the assurance that I am above suspicion. No, it will never make anyone see my face differently, but that isn't the point, I never held out so much hope for-- Forget him. I overpay, when I buy another boutonniere-- my theft is not a matter of monetary necessity, just necessity. The act of doing it is a little reward. And possessing will always be better than lacking, even a 'useless' thing. ... Not wholly useless. When I am able to write my apology, or... or a necessary but gentle breaking off of things, maybe I need to, oh I don't want to but maybe I need to... My job. I will tell him that it will be impossible for me to write him for a little while, because my work is taking me away. Some understanding permission, for him to seek another pen-friend, another flirtation. One who can send him pictures and meet him and fuck him if it comes to it. Seal with a kiss, no hard feelings, yours always and so sorry to have to go, and done. Done. I don't see the Sniper in the library, or anywhere. I see my own team out and about, and go back to the base for the nice thorough shave I had skipped out on, too distressed over this letter, this man who had to be the Sniper... A long shower, knowing no one is around to interrupt me. My plan was to stay in with a book, fix something to eat, just be at home. My plan was to go to bed early after dinner. And yet in my same jacket, with the same sad and dusty boutonniere, I find myself in my car as twilight starts falling, find myself outside the cafe when eight o'clock rolls around, and the Sniper has clearly been sitting in that booth for more than just an hour... He nurses a cup of coffee, and then when they try to remove him, he orders food, and I wish I could slide into the booth beside him-- not opposite, never with my back to the door-- and apologize for being so late, but that... Who am I even kidding, with wishes like that? He barely eats. I ache. They kick him out at last and turn the sign to closed, and I realize too late I've been standing there rather openly, as he steps through the door and well within arm's reach of me. "What do you want?" He scowls. "I--" Him, I want him... What am I even supposed to say? "Stood up?" His eyes flicker over me, and a split second of dismissal becomes rage before it can even settle. I can taste blood, the inside of my lip cut against my teeth, but nothing knocked loose. A few vertebrae rattled when I landed on my ass, but then the fucking thing has always been too flat anyway and the last thing I want is to make a scene, but I can't bear this. "Thought you'd have a laugh at me?" He yanks me up roughly by the front of my blazer, and then rips the boutonniere off, tossing it down and grinding it under his heel. "No--!" "Did you-- Did you know?" His voice goes low and dangerous. "Did-- Did you read my mail? You fucking snake!" "You don't understand--" "You did! You stole my letter, you came around to laugh at me sitting all alone, and to top it all off you thought you'd mock me--" "No, that isn't--" "I can't believe-- No, no, you know what? I can just about believe this, because you've been after me so bloody hard and sometimes I half thought you were following me on the weekend, like the library-- just, just to make my life miserable so-- so what? What do you get out of this, or are you just a miserable bastard yourself?" "Very miserable." I do my best to straighten myself out. The white carnation was beyond salvaging... "Somewhere else, all right? Not on a public street." He snarls wordlessly and drags me by my elbow to where he has parked, yanks his door open and shoves me up the steps into his camper. "All right, you want to have it out? Let's have it out. Nobody breaking up the fight. Yeah?" "I didn't steal your letters." "Letters? How many of them did you steal?!" "I didn't steal them!" "Rooting through the garbage after is still stealing." "As if I would root through garbage. I received them. The ones you have, I wrote them." If I could still hate him, I might have been gratified by the shock... "You-- You wrote them?" "Yes. The handkerchief, I was so surprised to see you with it, it was mine." "Yeah, pull the other one, what would you be doing with a woman's hanky?" "It was mine. And when I sent it, it smelled like wisteria and lavender. Wisteria and lavender and sandalwood and rose... I never could smell rose in it..." That stops him, and I can see belief creeping in slowly. "Well then what the hell were you doing with a woman's perfume?" "It was mine." "If this is some kind of joke--" "Joke? On who?! I didn't know I was writing to my enemy! I was just writing-- I was just lonely. Like you were." "And you... you thought you'd write to a man, then..." "Yes. It was supposed to be safe." "Fucking some kind of bloody safe, you were gonna let me go on asking what you look like, asking if I could ever see you, what kind of safe's that? Some consideration you had for a man you didn't think was your enemy, hate to see what you do for your friends!" "I don't have friends." I shrug. He paces the small space, fists balling up and clenching, then slowly loosening, only to start all over again. "You were gonna make me fall for a fake woman and leave me high and dry, is what it comes down to, and I don't care how 'lonely' you were, you're on a base full of men who get 'lonely'--" "I wasn't fake." I whisper. "Like hell you weren't." He glares up at me. "Shoulda just worked out something with one of your mates and left me out of it, long enough at Dustbowl and someone'd turn queer for a night, you didn't have to drag me through the dirt." "I wasn't fake. I am not 'queer'-- not like you mean it! All I wanted was a man to say nice things to me--" "I wasn't saying 'em to you." He sneers, and it's worse than being punched was. "I was saying them to someone who doesn't exist and never did. But it wasn't ever to you. None of that was for you." "Well everything that I said was for you. And it was all real." I draw myself up, and he lashes out again, this time grabbing for the kukri, before I even saw it. "OUT!" He slashed through the front of my blazer, but I know him well enough in a fight to know he wanted to scare me, not hurt me. He has a longer reach than that. "I don't want any more of your bloody lies, and I don't want any more of you-- And next time I see you, your head's mine!" There were a couple more swings, still fake, and his voice choked... I let him throw me out. I am in my car, right where I parked it, until well after midnight, but the utilitarian man's handkerchief that had been in my suit pocket was in ribbons, no good for drying tears on... and on the other side of the cafe, I can see the back tires of the camper van, and know he hasn't drive back to his base, either.
Oh God, this hurts so much, and yet I keep rereading and rereading...ah, such wonderful pain. So many tears. Manly, manly tears.
So beautiful... I wonder how Sniper is going to react seeing Spy next time on the battlefield. Please continue this soon, I just want to know if Sniper will be able to forgive Spy.
Still reading it, still loving it, still looking forward to the next chapter! :) The middle part was kinda confusing, though. Ok, Spy stole a lipstick so he could seal the letter with a kiss, but then what? Did he send the letter? I can't tell. I'm also wondering if his "clueless" characterization is intentional. He says he doesn't have friends, but there are seven men (and whatever the Pyro is) who seem to like him a lot, and enthusiastically try to spend time with him and get him to go out with them. Is that like... when people are depressed, they shut themselves in and become even more depressed, in a vicious cycle? You mentioned that Spy hates his life. Is he not just lonely, but outright depressed, then?
I just realized that part of the reason I'm looking forward to the continuation of this fic so much is that it may finally give me the sense of closure I always needed after having my heart ripped out by this: http://annethecatdetective.tumblr.com/post/25701649593/request-fill-for-cyan
Thank you, everyone! >>37 The lipstick wasn't stolen with the plan in mind, it was stolen mostly because Spy needed to feel in control of something, and pocketing something right under the cashier's nose did that. The idea of actually using it in correspondence came after. Sorry that that bit was confusing. And yeah... dealing with any spy often means sifting through what is and isn't real, but in this case, depression is a big reason why Spy claims not to have friends-- not to mention how hard it is to make real friends with people who don't know the real you, something the Sniper really is much closer to than the BLU team. (well, there's probably also still some bitterness over the night out with the team. Medic is the worst wingman...) >>38 Oh, right, that... I still start crying if I see the art, too, but it killed me not to have a happy ending... ---/-/--- Ch.XIII- SNIPER ---/-/--- "Haven't I taught you anything?" Dreaming. I knew I was dreaming, because Uncle Pindan's never been to an airport, let alone America, and because I fell asleep in my own bed, and 'woke up' flat on my back in the desert. "About what?" I gripe, pushing myself up. "Everything. A little bird told me you were in trouble." He smiles at that, and I shrug. "Look, if this is gonna be one of those dreams that teaches you a lesson, let's get to it, yeah? Otherwise I'll go back to the one with the long, dark hallway and the nudity." "You worked hard." He says, and I take it things aren't going to speed up any. "Remember? You were a young man caught between two worlds once." He hands me a small tiger snake, and it bites my hand. "Dammit!" I drop the thing and it slithers away while I go about trying to cut off the blood flow, forgetting for a minute there are no consequences in a dream to something like a snakebite. "You did that to yourself. You had a thing, and instead of understanding it, you bit your own self." "Understanding!" I spit. "The Spy? I don't care what he was up to or what he wanted, he-- That bloody-- I just--" Uncle Pindan shakes his head. "When you were a boy, you thought you owned so much. Did it hurt to learn it wasn't so?" My own head spins at that, and there's another terrifying moment of panic when I think it's the snakebite. I remember being told I was not a 'Real Australian'. Seventeen, skinny, smooth-lipped, it burned. The country was all I'd ever known, I'd been born there, my parents had been, and my grandparents. How much more of a 'Real Australian' could I have been? And then, after I was done being hurt and angry... I got smart instead. A little bit at a time, at first, and with limited success. There was no easy, instant acceptance with the Nunga, but I found I craved it in a way I never wanted from anyone back home, from any of what I'd been taught to view as 'society'. Dad didn't care for me working to earn it, either, but I did. When I look up, Uncle Pindan's gone, and when I look down, the snakebite is an old scar. The sands beneath my feet have shifted. It still hurts when I wake-- not the snakebite, of course, but the Spy, the feeling of betrayal. The blinding anger is gone. I rub over the spot where I'd never really been bitten, staring up at the ceiling. My first time in the desert, I'd called it 'useless land'-- you couldn't grow anything on it, couldn't raise sheep there, no one who could carve out something better wanted it, and what good, after all, was land you couldn't tame? That's the thing about being raised on a station, maybe. You get taught to see the earth as a masterable commodity, something that belongs to you instead of the other way around. It was a personal revelation, to learn that there were people who loved it for its wildness, to get some reinforcement for that kernel of knowledge I had in me that the land I loved wasn't tame, and that I belonged to it. I loved the desert ever since... I've looked for that same love in the desert around Teufort and never found it. There's open sky and rock and sand, snakes and scorpions and circling hawks. There's still freedom, but the desert isn't my desert. The land isn't my land. I don't belong the same way. It just makes me feel stuck between two worlds again, even if those worlds are different. ... Is the Spy caught between two worlds? Reckon. He must be, in some way. Between wanting to be a consummate professional and wanting a man to say sweet things to him, maybe, I don't... I don't even know. He can say those letters were from the real him all he wants, but he still lied to me, didn't he? He can say he didn't mean any harm by him, but I still hurt. He can say it went farther than he meant it to, but he must have meant for it to go pretty damn far, it's not like he picked up a monogrammed ladies' hanky on a whim! I'm pacing the floor again, while I wait on the coffee, and it's when I sit down with it that I kick something small under the table. I bend down to reach for it, don't know what it'd even be, I keep the place neat, and what I pull up isn't mine, though the nick in the plastic would fit my kukri. It says 'Yardley', though that means absolutely nothing to me, and it's not until the cap's been fumbled off I realize I'm holding lipstick, and the only possible place it could've come from is the Spy, but that would mean... What? He's a-- a cross-dresser, or...? So what? I mean, is that-- can I live with that, if he is? It's the Spy either damn way, no way around that, I've been writing to the Spy. Caring about the Spy. I just don't see myself with a man, not for anything real. Does that make all the things I thought I was feeling for Genevieve unreal, then? I want somebody who... who wants things in line with what I want. Just because the Spy likes poetry, that doesn't mean we'd be compatible, not when... It all gives me a bloody headache. I grab an envelope and a piece of notepaper anyway. Least I can do is return this thing.
Ch.XIV- SPY ---/-/--- I avoid him when the week begins, and try to sink myself into work-- at least, into the work that doesn't take me near him. When the mid-week mail comes, I don't bother looking. It's the Scout who hammers on my door, waving an envelope under my nose when I open it. "You didn't come down for mail call." He tosses it to me. "And if you're late for dinner, it's gonna be your tough luck, pal, 'cause it's going fast!" It is addressed 'BLU Spy' on the envelope, sent through the company and not through the lonely hearts service, but when I open it, I recognize the writing all the same. Spy, Look, I don't know if you're a cross-dresser or a klepto or what, but I figure this is yours either way and I don't want it. I fight against a sob. There's no good way to explain it's neither, no way for me to explain anything to him anymore. I slide a thumb over the nicked plastic case and carry it over to the vanity, to the drawer with the little things, soft and feminine and all too out-of-place in the rough fabric of this place, my life... It's not the piece of furniture I would have chosen... simple, plain brown stain and varnish, a history of old scratches on the surface. If I painted it white and changed the knobs on it, maybe it would look enough like the one my mother once owned... Something modern might have suited my tastes better, metal and glass, just a console table with a mirror, but then I wouldn't have the storage, and anyway, none of that matters. With the letter and the lipstick shoved away out of sight, and the memory of the chilly, impersonal-- no, distancing note ringing fresh, I feel at a loss. The team is down at dinner-- whatever it is, it is something popular. I have no appetite... I lock my door and start stripping out of my suit. I don't plan on leaving this room before work tomorrow. Maybe the Sniper is not... wrong, exactly, calling me a cross-dresser. Just because it is a thing I have done for my career and for my personal safety, and not for any pleasure... But it is not at all what he must have been thinking. It is a flawed body I keep hidden away, but it is mine... if that is the best thing I can say about it, I can say that it is mine. If I could change it with a wish, I would, but I will not break my heart over its shortcomings. The sleeves of my dressing gown are too short, but that, too, is mine. It pulls across the shoulders and it hits awkwardly mid-forearm and mid-calf, but slipping into it feels like wearing heaven. It belongs to someone without deep scars, someone affluent and idle, on a lithe and soft and beautiful body... In it, I could be that person. Once it's belted, I sit at the vanity and draw my gloves off, rolling them and placing them in the front of the drawer, and it is nice to be able to take them off at last, to let the soft, pale skin underneath breathe, to give a little appraisal and admiration to well-kept nails, to touch things and not worry about fingerprints. Last, the mask. The tan lines are awful and there's nothing to be done for them, and the features aren't the ones I would have chosen for myself, but those too are mine. Besides... who gets to choose everything for themselves? I've chosen what I can. The rest is out of my hands. I dig back past the gloves, to the nice handkerchiefs, the perfume vial, the hastily stashed stolen lipstick. I spread it all out, including the too-small white gloves, though not the uniform pair. I wonder what's become of the best handkerchief? Thrown out, on discovering my identity? The others are fine... nearly identical, but the stitching is not so nice, the white one has a stain, and the green one has a bit of fraying at one corner. I trace over the G on each of them, before folding them and putting them back in place. A whiff of the perfume before it's put away as well. I let the gloves sit out a while longer, it's the only way to appreciate them. I pick up the lipstick. It's one of those awful pale frosted nudes that younger girls have been wearing, a trend I'd thought was on its last legs, but then, Teufort... it would be behind the times. It's not the worst thing, the London Look. And maybe I am one to talk when it comes to fashion, I still prefer the classic looks and have yet to forgive Mary Quant for unleashing the miniskirt upon us. Yes, well, she didn't design it for me... If I'd been paying attention in the store, I might have picked something else to pocket, but then, if I'd been paying attention to colour, the whole thing would have been less smooth... I could just as unobtrusively return it next weekend, slip it back onto the shelf. Even if I was in any position to go leaving lip prints on love letters, this is hardly the shade, you want a red for that, and... I laugh, but it's an ugly sound. Want a RED for that, indeed. I won't put it back. The nick in the plastic from the kukri would go unnoticed, passed off as damage from the cans, but... I don't know if the reminder is a good or a bad thing, I only know it's a thing, a memory that stings still, but I am not ready to release it. That same blade has been in my body a thousand times... And this, this little object, it has been in his home and in his hands. It really is a terrible colour. I don't care. It has that smell, that I've missed so terribly since letting my disguise kit go, thick and waxy and unmistakable. It is almost as sweet to me as the perfume, uncapping the tube to be hit with that cosmetic scent. I close my eyes and savor it, exhale shaky through the lips and another deep breath through the nose. I have been too much a fool too many times. It is less terrible, having this. I have no brush-- that, too, in the kit in storage, far away... it is more awkward without, but the feel of it is smooth and nothing has to be perfect. Less shaky, on the next exhale. I look ill, when I examine myself in the mirror again, but I feel better. I do not kiss the bottom of the letter, when I write down my thanks. But I do plan to send it.
Every time I read a new chapter, I think there's no way the next one will manage to break my heart more. And every time, I am wrong. I have a theory regarding this story, but I'm gonna keep it to myself mostly in case I turn out to be wrong...
Anne, I think you should know I read every one of your chapters at least thrice, out of both a sweet savouring, and a fierce impatience for more.
>>41 YES! (to anyone else who has been formulating theories, I'm just gonna say, every time I post a chapter, I kind of nervously wait to see who might figure out the reveal ahead of time-- only two people were privy to it ahead of time, one of them by virtue of being the prompt requester) >>42 D'aw... my blushes! ---/-/--- Ch.XV- SNIPER ---/-/--- Dear Sniper, Since we are on class-name basis now, it seems... Anyway, thank you very much. It wouldn't have mattered very much if you had thrown it away, maybe, but it meant something to me that you would go to the trouble of sending it. I would like to talk to you sometime. I think you deserve something of an explanation, one where we are not so angry, one where I can keep calm enough to give it. You may say 'no', of course. And you have my apologies either way. I never intended for you to be hurt, or to make you feel foolish. It was short-sighted and selfish of me. But if you are not too angry to talk, any time that we can take the time for it and find the privacy, then I will do my best. Still yours, Genevieve I'd softened up through it, until the end, can feel my nostrils flaring as I ball the letter up and throw it as far as the confines of the camper allow. I go into town, and I find him. He's in the library, of course he's in the library, standing at the same shelf where we'd run into each other before. He turns around before I reach him, but I give his shoulder a little shove anyway, even if I don't need to get his attention. "Oi, Spook." I hiss. "Jig's pretty well up, don't you think? No point signing your last letter all fancy if you're not trying to rub my face in it." "I am not." He whispers, and he doesn't sound at all like the Spy I've always fought with. He sounds... demure. "May I check out first? And then I am at your disposal." "Do whatever the hell you want." I scowl. I follow him to the counter anyway, where the librarian gives us both a wary glare until we're gone, and he follows me out to my van. "Sit." I grunt, motioning to the table. He takes my seat, and there's not much I can do except sit on the long bench with a little gap between us. Not sitting across from him, even in my own home I don't like facing the back wall instead of the door. "Talk." He sets his book down and takes his gloves off slowly without saying a word. The skin is pale-- guess it makes some sense, since his hands never see the sun, but somehow I'd still expected them to match the little of his face I can see. His nails are... shiny. Even after finding the lipstick he must have dropped, the fact they're painted doesn't click at first, maybe because it'd have to be a clear polish. He takes his mask off after that, still quiet, before he finally looks up at me. "Did you sign your real name, when you wrote to me?" "Yes." I cross my arms. That, that's still a sore point, now I know it was him. "Well. So did I." "They name boys 'Genevieve' in France?" A muscle at his lip twitches. "No. And what they do name boys is not a part of this discussion. I do a dangerous job. Dangerous enough for a man, too dangerous for a woman. It is the only job I can do, it is the job I was made for. I was a born imitator. By the time I was fifteen, I had made an art of disguise, by the time I was sixteen, I was a thief with a deft hand, and by the time I was seventeen I had been the perpetrator of more acts of sabotage than many grown men, and had seduced and killed two soldiers." "... And?" "And I did all of these things with a woman's heart." "You're a woman?" "Yes." He-- She nods. "You don't look it, pardon me for saying." "Yes." His-- Her, her, she's a woman?-- Her mouth, her mouth makes a thin line at that, she looks down at her folded hands. A woman. "I mean-- Look, fuck, I just-- Were you always?" "Yes." She whispers, the same soft library voice. "And no." I have no idea how to process that. I have no idea what to think about any of this. "I mean--" "I know what you mean. And there are no simple answers. What I am, the way that I think and feel and see the world, that is very different from what the world wants me to be. The worlds needs me to be a man. And so, for now, that is what the world gets. In letters... in letters, I was able to give you more. The truth. From a born liar, that is quite a gift. It was a gift to me, too, to say it." "Yeah, but--" "But what?" "I just..." I shake my head. Of all the things I thought about, when I found out the Spy had been writing me, when I found the lipstick in my camper, this never even entered my mind. "You may ask me about my genitals on one condition, cher." She smirks, humourless, but it wasn't the same cruel twist I was used to on the Spy's face... not quite. "And I will answer." "Well what's the condition?" "You have to want me." She shrugs. "You have to want to make love to me, even after the misunderstandings and the fights. If you do, or think you may, then ask. If you think, after everything, that you will never want from me the things you once thought you might, when I was only ink and paper, then you cannot expect an answer about such personal things." I take a deep breath and look at my own hands. "I don't know." "All right, then." "I-- I only said I don't know. I didn't say-- I mean... I'm working through the fact it's you still. You never liked me, either!" She-- She? She!-- smiles, sad and gentle and not so humourless as the hard, wry smirk had been. "Oh, mon ami, I hated the Sniper. But I never knew you." "Yeah, well, coulda fooled me, you killed me often enough. Real ladylike, that." I grumble. "You said you liked Kipling." I look back up at that. It seems non sequitur, but then, what hasn't? "When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man, he will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can, but his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail, for the female of the species is more deadly than the male." There is almost a laugh hiding behind that smile, and such a turn to it that even with the Spy's face and even with the Spy's voice, and even with everything I've ever known or thought I did about him, in that instant I understand that I am talking to a woman. The way she looks at me isn't the way a man does, not even a man who wants sex, not even the queerest pooftah in the world. The softness under the Spy's voice. The way every one of those letters was written, the scent that had been on them... all of it. I still don't understand most of the whole situation. I still don't know how to... to fit that with the Spy I've seen before, the one who was never womanly like this. But... it's something to grasp onto. "You picked that stanza." I smile back. "Is it because you're cold-blooded, or you just like it?" "It is because my favourite ends differently, and I only have half the poem memorized." "Ah. Was hoping maybe it was because you just liked snakes." "I could. I have no particular terror of them, and some admiration for any animal that moves smoothly and strikes quickly. Elegant creatures." "I, um... like snakes." I shrug. It sounds stupid when it comes out. "That's all. Why, what's your favourite?" "Animal, or stanza?" "Either." "Panthers, maybe, for an animal. Any big jungle cat. Again, elegant." "And deadly." "You catch on." She reaches and stops herself from touching me. "And stanza?" I put my hand on her book, not far away from hers, and not yet ready to bridge the last gap. It's all well and good, talking, and maybe... maybe her circumstances do make it... make it forgivable, what she did to me, with those letters. It's still weird, though, to see her as a woman-- to see her as a person at all, with the mask off, but especially to see all the hidden little things beyond her face. "She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast, May not deal in doubt or pity-- must not swerve for fact or jest, These be purely male diversions-- not in these her honour dwells-- She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else." There is a weight in the words as she speaks them, the weight of every ounce of truth you can wring out of a poem. When her hand slips to just touch the edge of mine, I stay. "Is it... hard, to be a woman?" I ask, for lack of anything better, when the silence gets to be too much. She laughs. "Cher, no! It is hard to be a man!" "And... you have to be, most of the time." I nod, unsure. The laughter dies off, and the smile. "Almost all of the time, on the outside." "But on the inside... you want a garden, and a man, and... and all the stuff you wrote is real?" "Yes." "Right." I hook my little finger around hers. "Sorry if I was... bad, to you. And, and apology accepted, for everything. And what if we wrote each other again? Like we used to. We could pretend I never asked to meet you." I can see her wilt, shrink in on herself. "Of course." "And then when I ask you again, you could say yes, because I'll already know it's you." She grabs my hand up with both of hers, and there's a hesitant smile, and tears, and it's like seeing someone completely different even with the Spy's face and the Spy's tan lines. "Will you? And I'll say yes, of course I-- Will you? And we'll meet here, we could never-- could never in town, but you will? And I will!" "Even-- even being mad at you I missed... I missed it, real letters." I nod. "Did... did you keep the handkerchief I sent you?" "Yeah, did." "Oh." She sighs, and the smile is brighter, and the way she moves isn't the way a man moves, not even the way the Spy moved, and the Spy always moved too smooth and too quiet. I mean, she is the Spy. Sort of. Isn't she? I don't hardly know anymore, all I know is when she-- she, yeah?-- I mean, when she looked up at me like that I couldn't be mad, and when she quoted poetry at me I wanted to listen to her forever, even with the Spy's voice-- the Spy's voice, only softer than the Spy's voice, and I want the letters back, feel sick over ruining the last one especially now I know she... She. Some master of disguise, yeah? And hell, I don't know if she's a woman disguised as a man and doing a damn good job of it, or if she's a man who always wished he was a woman and that's what she meant about having a woman's heart, I don't know. For now, I don't have to know. For now, we'll go back to letters for a bit, and I'll just... digest this. And then when I figure out what I can handle from it, we... move forward, maybe. I wouldn't be ready to ask questions about what is or isn't between her legs if I tried, right now, but later, later I'll... I'll think about it, I'll figure it out. Letters again first. It'll feel more natural once we're writing again. "Wait--" I stop her at the door, where she's drawn her mask and gloves back on, and tucked her book under her arm, and transformed with her hand on the handle into him again. "Er, I mean-- Do we still... fight?" "But of course. We are paid to. I will kill you kindly when I can. And you will kill me, when I cannot. It hardly hurts, the shock and the adrenaline make it all right, and never for long." "Just wanted to be sure." "I would appreciate it if you stopped with the jars, of course." "... I dunno. I like the jars." I grin weakly. There's a moment, where she flickers to the surface and disappears beneath the Spy again. "There are more entertaining ways to get me wet, n'est pas?" And then he-- or, she, I guess-- the Spy, is gone, and I am really awkwardly aroused...
I'm crying again, but now it's with joy. Anne, you light up my world. Everything about this is perfect.
Ch.XVI- SPY ---/-/--- Dear Genevieve, It's somehow such an immense relief, even after coming to a sort of peace between us, to see my name in his hand again. As though I was only waiting for our conversation to be made real by virtue of being written out. I had some trouble thinking of what to write you at first, I've been having a lot of trouble thinking lately. I wanted it to be something real. I think I'm trying to get it through my head how much, or how many, real things you told me. I'm still working on that, to be honest. I mean, I believe you. I just don't... always get all of it at the same time, if that makes any sense. I ran away when I was seventeen. I could tell you about that. It was after a fight with my old man, and I couldn't tell you now what the fight was even about. About spending my whole life the way he spent his, probably. I respect my dad for what he's done and who he is, but I'm not him, you know? I knew that when I was young, but I could never say it without a fight. I came back eventually. Wasn't a day between my being home and my number coming up, for the army, and nothing was the same after that... I knew how to shoot a rifle before the army, for hunting-- predators, mostly, a good meal other times. And sometimes shooting targets, just for fun, bit of competition. But it wasn't the same. And there's a world of difference between a hunting rifle and a sniper rifle. At least, there was to me. I'll tell you sometime about everything between leaving home and the service. In person, I ought to tell you some things in person, shouldn't I? So we'll meet one of these days, and I'll tell you more. Would hate to run out of things to say before we even meet up properly. I trace a finger over his signature, his real signature. The one I'm the only person in this war to know... The rest of the week is easier, having that. We do fight-- I find him Thursday morning with the Razorback. "Oh, clever." I hiss in his ear, before leveling the Ambassador to his temple. "Too bad I am clever, too." "Too bad." I can hear his grin. We both hesitate a moment, a moment I could spend pulling the trigger and he could spend pulling his kukri, but then I finish him off. He gets the upper hand the next time we meet, and looks almost apologetic, in the moment before he guts me. It goes back and forth, as much as it ever used to. Friday night we are locked together, struggling for an upper hand and smiling over it. "Am I getting something in the mail tomorrow?" He pants, shoving me back into the wall of his nest. "I am up by three kills this week." I push him back, slashing out at him. "Shall I make it four?" "Give me something-- am I down by three?" He grabs my wrist and pulls my arm up over my head, bringing us in close. "You are. I sent you something sweet." I stamp down on his foot-- no, next to it. "Ah-ah-ah... I've got a score to even out, seems like." "Oh, seems like..." "... You're different, when you flirt." He says, and I could twist out of his grip and don't. "Oh?" "Yeah." "Oh." I smile, and when it seems he really has forgotten that we're in a fight to the death, I relax and take a deep breath. Deep enough that the way he leans in, my chest nearly touches his. "Do tell." "Soft." He swallows. "Mm..." "I, er... it's still in my pocket. Your hanky. For luck. Or something." "Luck..." I sigh. "You are in luck-- I happen to be rather sentimental about that kind of thing. If I wasn't, this knife would be in your back, you know you are not holding me nearly tight enough." "Oh?" He waggles his eyebrows at me. "Saying I should hold you tighter?" I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and his demeanor changes when mine does. Fun over, time for real work. I still don't know who almost came upon us when I come out of respawn... but none of my teammates say a thing, or act at all differently towards me, so I have to assume that if it was one of them, they saw nothing. It was fun, though, flirting mid-fight... it's the idea, of being held tightly-- and maybe not on the battlefield-- that sends me off to sleep at last.
I'm not really buying why Sniper's giving Spy a chance here. Even with what you've set up so far, the transition of Sniper's attitude from suspicious and adversarial to flirtatious is too abrupt. Sniper's main issue with going forward with this relationship is that his pen pal turned out to be the enemy Spy. That Sniper isn't into dudes is a convenient excuse, but if that wasn't a problem he could raise a million other objections. Issue #1 is "can I trust anything this backstabbing asshole says?" Issue #2 is "even if I could, why on earth would continuing this farce a good idea?"
That last scene was just unf! Cannot wait for more.
I used to love this fic. I was so excited when I saw the update and I can't describe how disappointed I am. Don't get me wrong, Anne, I love your style and all, but the thing I hate the most is people changing their genre.
>>46 Understandable. He's still kind of in a state of flux over it himself, and struggling with how much he would sometimes like to believe things, which I underemphasized in the last chapters. So yeah, on re-reading, I really see where you're coming from. >>47 Glad I could earn an unf! ---/-/--- Ch.XVII- SNIPER ---/-/--- I look forward to it. I read the sentence over again and wonder what I've gotten myself into. It's so damn hard to keep up now. It's like half the time everything's normal, and I'm doing my job and the Spy's doing his and then in the middle of a fight she suddenly comes over all girly, and then I get stupid, and then... And then we're doing our jobs again and I feel stupid for getting stupid and she's gone and he's the Spy again, as far as I can tell. I've second-guessed myself up until I was about eightieth-guessing myself, and every time it comes back to the mask coming off in my camper last weekend. Maybe the Spy would do a lot of things to convince me of something-- I can imagine as much, with all the things I used to know about him. Or, well, her. If the Spy wanted to trick me into something, if he was still just this guy getting off on something weird or taboo, maybe he'd talk pretty. Maybe he'd offer sex-- probably he would, if things came to that. Maybe he'd show up, I don't know, in a dress or actually wearing that damn lipstick. She didn't. She came in and sat down and took his mask off, and the Spy wouldn't have done that if this wasn't true somehow. Not on a gamble that might not have paid off, and not if it would've been easy enough to write some other lonely sucker. So Genevieve's real. Ish. All right. I can believe that, then. I can believe it when I see it, at least, and sometimes I do see it. It doesn't look like work when she moves like a woman. I just don't know what I'm doing whenever she disappears, I start guessing all over again. The letters are easier. I could picture someone else's face when I read her letters, if I wanted. Someone else's voice. She sent me a glove. Not one of the Spy's gloves. Hell, I don't think it would even fit him. Or her. It smells a little like that perfume, and a little like something else, something less frilly. Not like the hanky did, like... Like maybe it was kept with a... sachet or something? I try to read on from the line that keeps snagging me. I look forward to it. Meeting properly, pretending we didn't bollocks it up already. I look forward to it. Hearing me actually talk, about myself, like I'm somehow listening. I look forward to it. And once we do, I have to stop pretending that there's another face and another voice. I haven't done the best job pretending anyway. Could I love a girl with a face like the Spy's? I mean, how much choice do I have, anyway, I was... I was well on my way at least, before I hit him I hit her outside the restaurant. Fuck. Does this make up for it? I only did it because it was the Spy, dammit, we murder each other every day, she said it was fine to do that, but hitting a woman outside the place you asked her to meet you for dinner's different, and I didn't know that then about her. That must've hurt her as bad as her being the Spy hurt me. Did she really only find out just before I did? Does she really feel all that stuff? Maybe she could fake looking at me like she did, but not the mask, not the mask... that wouldn't come off if it was just the Spy. No, she really needed me to trust her, and she must have really trusted me, or been willing to go down for it. And the Spy's never been willing to lose everything just for a shot at trust, not the Spy I thought I knew. I look forward to it. You like the desert, don't you? Even if it is not the greatest desert you have seen, you do like it? Would you take me sometime? Far enough away from everyone else, so that we could just be. And we could walk along, with my hand in yours, and never worry about what anyone thought? The glove I am afraid I have never worn... they came a size too small, the only pair. I thought, if I was only keeping them for decoration anyway, maybe if I sent one to you... I mean, it has been in the drawer with my things, and my perfume, and of course I could take it back if it wasn't personal enough, the way the handkerchief was personal. Those handkerchiefs I have had for almost ten years, a set of them. So that must be personal. And then, there were other things, I thought they were too personal. And it seemed a little gauche to come out and ask you how personal you cared to be. I thought you would let me know when it was the right time to, to be personal. If you cared to, beyond just writing. I don't mind being more personal just in writing, of course. I treat your letters very personally, myself. I have had to change my little ritual, just a little, since things were shaken up... now that I receive and write them on a different night of the week, it is a little less leisurely. Still, I try to make the occasion a special one. There is more, and perhaps that is something else to save for when we are face to face. Yours very sincerely, Genevieve Wonder if sincerity is any more intimate than kisses, coming from a spy. I leave out all my questions. They'd be harder face to face, but I'd rather not spoil letters with them. Maybe she had a point, maybe living out a fantasy with each other on paper is better than being lonely one hundred percent of the time. I mean, I didn't expect anyone when I started, right? Of course right. It's just weird finding myself attracted to the Spy sometimes. There was never attraction, with the... the army stuff. It wasn't even always a dirty little secret-- oh, sure, you didn't want anyone above you finding out, but everyone did a little, sometimes. Even blokes who were never desperate enough to want a handjob from another man, you know, we all did stuff, even just measuring against each other because we were bored stupid, or when it got to the point where there was no point having a sense of privacy when you needed a wank. I had mates I fooled around with just to get off, and I don't think we'd either of us be awkward about it today, and at the time these were people I'd die for and trust to do the same for me if another war came up, which it didn't. Things just happened, but we never felt anything about it. After a while, not even awkward. Now every time the Spy goes all girly I go all... I mean, not queer, not... I don't even know, she says stuff and I think things, and I got to be half-hard once on the battlefield once, up until she turned back into the Spy and it was like a bucket of cold water. So what the hell am I attracted to? Her. Apparently. I just wish it was easier, wish she was always one person, one not-the-spy person, if possible, but... But for now, in letters, at least I can try to keep things the same as they used to be. I just thought I'd have it pieced together by now. I thought fighting each other would make it easier to get some distance from Genevieve, because I'd be seeing the Spy, and instead when we're alone, he just keeps being her, I can see it when it happens. I don't know if it's selfish or masochistic to want to keep the little thing I had, and I don't know when I'll be able to move onto more, just that I didn't want her looking as sad as she did when I put that distance back between us, and now I still don't know, except fighting's got more complicated.
>>48 Sorry that the reveal put you off, and I hope the next thing I write is something you can enjoy! ---/-/--- Ch.XVIII- SPY ---/-/--- Dear Genevieve, I think maybe we should talk sometime. There's things I couldn't ask you in a letter, and I don't think I'll know what we're even doing here if I don't ask them. I don't mean for that to sound dire or anything. The problem is I don't know what I mean. You've got me twisted around. Maybe it's not a bad thing, I just don't know. I kind of thought maybe if we went back to letters a while it would work itself out somehow. Maybe that was naive. I had a dream, after we fought, I mean fought for real that time, that seemed to point me back towards you. Maybe it was right to, but I need to understand things, and right now I don't, not a single one. I couldn't call it unexpected. That we picked back up at all was more surprising than this. At least maybe I could take some comfort in his dreams pushing him my way, but... Well. I can do my best to explain. I don't fight him, the rest of the week-- I would rather start our meeting on the cleanest slate possible. When the weekend does come, I pack a few things that might make explaining easier into a small attache case, and I find his camper in town. "I almost ran off, you know." He smiles wearily, letting me in. "I almost did as well." I take the seat he ushers me to, the same as last time. "It's just... I start to get comfortable with you, really I do. And then I turn around and the Spy's looking back at me, and... I started to fall for the girl in those letters, you know?" "And she for you. And now?" "I don't know." He shrugs. I place the case on the table and open it, slow and careful. The scrapbook is there, next to a folded chemise and the nicked lipstick tube, and the two handkerchiefs to almost match the one I'd given him, wrapped around the perfume vial. "This is me." I turn it to him, all of it. He picks up the handkerchiefs first, surprised to find the perfume tucked inside, but he catches it before it can fall, and places it on the chemise. "You've had these ten years?" I nodded. "So... I mean, I guess you've... been Genevieve for ten years?" "I have been 'Genevieve' for twenty-four, almost exactly. That is more than half my life, and a lady doesn't say how much-- or how little-- more. Before that I was no one." "You were someone." "My name was not my own. And I had yet to accept ownership of my body-- Oh, when I was a child it was easy. There was little difference between me and the other girls then. I wished for a prettier name and prettier things, but I did not loathe my body then. I still struggle with it, but I do not loathe it now." "I see. Then the body is... all, er, male." "Well, it is not entirely what I would like, but it is still mine." I defend. He picks up the scrapbook, brow furrowing as he flips past where the real photographs end and the magazine clippings start. "What's this?" "Someone else's life. But I wish it were mine. I put the ones in lingerie up in my room, in case the team comes in... You are the only one who knows I long to be and not to be with." He nods, bypassing the lipstick and touching the chemise, before drawing back from it. "Also mine. I cannot sleep in it. What if there was a fire? But I change into it, for only a few minutes at a time, when I can. Or other things like it." It is not very different, from the things worn by the girls I'd longed to be. They are always draped in silks, in satins, in lace. Sometimes there is a wool suit tailored to a woman's frame, sometimes there is a fur, or a full skirt... mostly, though it is the kind of thing I couldn't wear properly even with the freedom. A full skirt would be best. With a good petticoat, the fact that I have no ass to speak of would be hidden. The right amount of ruffles or draping could add volume to my chest. Has, in the past, for too-brief evenings limited to too few spots. "Would you have done any of this different, if you'd known it was me?" "It depends. Had I known from the start, I would not have written. And that being the case, I am glad I did not know. When I learned of it, I was already-- I already felt things for you. I knew you to be a man worth knowing, not the man I always thought-- Not like just the sniper. You... cannot believe me?" "The problem's not that I can't, the problem's I want to so much I don't know what I should." "Then believe me." I place my hand over his. "What do you want, out of this?" "I am not certain it matters..." I glance away, and he turns his hand over to squeeze mine. "Let's say it does. It matters for half, right?" "I want a love affair. In Paris, there were men... there were men who would flirt with me. But the ones who took me home, they always wanted me to be a man in a dress. They were used to performers, to people for whom dressing up was a game. They were queer, and I can hardly hold such a thing against them, whatever I am it is not ordinary. But even when things were good, they were a farce. I want to be treated like a woman, not because it is a game, because I am one. When you wrote me, you did that. And sometimes, even... even after everything, for a moment you would. What do you want?" "I want to settle down someday, before I get old. With a girl who'd cook for me some of the time, and read on the sofa next to me in the evenings, and... I mean, just settling down stuff." "It sounds very nice, settling down." I smile wistfully. "What if we don't work?" "Then I will be sad, for a time. But I will have your letters, and some little memories. And you will have my handkerchief, until another woman replaces it with her own." "There's a lot stacked up against this." He shakes his head and stands, paces. "The war, and you being-- being a spy, the Spy, and maybe I won't get over some things even if I try, and maybe I'll hurt you." I slide out from my seat and touch his shoulder, making sure he sees it coming. "Cher, in all my life, my heart has been built for breaking. Never has brokenness been so worth earning. I will be sad, but not destroyed... you know?" He shakes his head. "I don't. I don't get any of this. I don't get having feelings for you, I don't get how you look like the Spy and all of a sudden I see a woman, I don't get... Can I ask you something? I mean, and you could say no if it's too personal, but... but let me ask and maybe it'll be easier." "But of course." I nod. Well, I was prepared to explain things... and maybe it's a good sign that he feels ready to ask. It means he thinks it's possible to still want me, doesn't it? "Could I call you Ginny?" "I hav-- what?" "I just thought... I mean, yeah, it's stupid, but... if I did, then... then I'd have a, sort of a nickname for you, and it'd be easier to think of you as... as the kind of person I'd be giving a nickname to." I smile. "That was all you wanted to ask?" "For today. Figure you can tell me other stuff when it comes up. And... and if I try this out and everything feels wrong, well then we know. But maybe it doesn't, maybe it starts feeling more normal." "Maybe." I sit, and pat the bench, and he sits a little closer to me than he had been. "What if we met sometime in a hotel-- I mean, not for anything-- I mean, what if sometime I got a hotel room, and I changed, into all the things I can never wear? And you could see me as myself. My real self." "Maybe." He nods. "We could try that next weekend. That and having a nickname for you, and if those don't straighten my head out, then I'm not sure, but... it's a plan, right?" "Right." My stomach still churns a little at the idea. I'm glad I made the offer, but... even with the disguise kit I left behind when BLU gave me the company-issued one, I... it was never perfect. Without even that, what if I look ridiculous? What if he laughs? Would he? I think I know a little of what he means, about being confused. I feel like the man I wrote to would not laugh, but I still think 'but the Sniper would'. It will feel good to have a hotel room to myself. No hasty visits to the locker room on-base, I could have as long a shower as I pleased-- I could have a bath. I could get a close shave and take time on myself. We sit a while longer, in silence only slightly awkward-- for everything else, only slightly awkward-- before I cough and he scoots over and I rise. I pack up my things again, and he places a hand at the small of my back for the two steps it takes us to reach the door. "Next Saturday night?" He asks. "I will get the room as you, during the morning shift, then call down as myself to say you gave your key to me-- over the phone, if it is not long, I can pass, don't worry-- and when you come in, they'll give it to you." I turn and kiss his cheek before I can stop myself. He lets me, at least, and that is something. "See you then." "Yes, then." I compose myself, and I hate doing it for the way he grows uneasy once the mask is back in place.
>>48 I mean, if the story just isn't to your taste, that's totally fine, but I don't think she really changed her genre. It's still about a Sniper and a Spy on enemy teams writing love letters to each other. The plot didn't suddenly change directions or categories--in fact, if you look back, she's been hinting at this from the beginning. The Spy being revealed as trans* changes your perception of a character, not the genre of the story. But seriously, Anne, thank you so much for this absolute gem of a fic. This might actually really be my most favourite Sniper/Spy fanfiction--and from me, that's saying a hell of a lot. Thank you for making me cry all the time, and I can't wait to see what happens next to Genevieve and her Sniper!
I really hope spy has a vagina That would be hella hot
i really hope not! i can understand being a woman internally, but NOSE i like the standard MANLYmen mangasm! dick n balls all the way
I really hope hes got both! If the body is male and there's still a cock but also a vagina, is that futa?(USER WAS BANNED FOR SAMEFAGGING THE LAST THREE POSTS)
>>52 >>53 >>54 I see some people don't understand trans folk. Please stop posting, you're interrupting my enjoyment of a fic that is relevant to me and doesn't fetish the shit out of being trans.
>>52 >>53 >>54 "Stop it all of you, there's nothing wrong with it." The Medic groans, rolling his eyes. "He's perfectly normal." And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, he turns to shout at the girl behind the bar, one arm slung around my neck. "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS MAN'S PENIS!" Y'all are at least two of the following three: trolling, bad at reading, and disrespectful. Just stop.
The turn of events surprised me a lot, and for about two chapters I had NO idea what Spy was, making the story a lot less fun to read for me as I had no idea what I should imagine. The last two chapters really cleared that up for me now, and I'm happily awaiting the next chapter!
No way >>52 >>53 and >>54 aren’t a) the same person and b) deliberately trolling/making a nuisance of themselves. Mods, please get rid of them? If â€yaoi†isn’t allowed here, â€futa†shouldn’t either.
Yyyeah... my aim is kind of to write about characters who feel at least somewhat real and true and not fetish objects (unless I'm writing PWPs, then that's the point I guess). Anyway, moving on... ---/-/--- Ch.XIX- SNIPER ---/-/--- I stare long and hard at myself in the mirror. "Just what the hell have you gotten yourself into?" I sigh. Not really surprised when the bastard in the glass has got no answer for me. "What have ya gotten yourself into?" The Scout pops out of nowhere to run into the locker room and hop up onto the edge of the sink next to mine. "Nothing." "Nah, c'mon, man, whatcha doing?" "Shaving. Someday you'll be old enough." "Freakin' shut up already and just tell me what's up or don't talk to yourself in public." He groans. "Someday..." The Spy-- I mean, our Spy, obviously-- follows him in, tone lofty. "Someday, you are going to crack the porcelain jumping up on the sink. And I hope I am there to laugh at you." "Yeah, whatever." Scout rolls his eyes, making a talking motion with one hand and swinging his feet. The Spy takes up the sink to the other side of me, and he coughs insistently and gives Scout and I significant looks until we avert our eyes. I can hear him roll the fabric of his mask up halfway, and the edge of his straight razor against skin. We used to try and sneak glances, back when the team was new at... well, at being a team, but he never takes his mask all the way off, and no one's ever seen the lower half of his face without the mask, or a thick layer of shaving foam, or a towel over it. Eventually we all gave up on it. Scout nicks himself with his safety razor every few days-- about every time he uses it-- 'cause the kid can't be bothered to be careful. Has to rush through it. And I shave with my kukri-- which means I bother to be very careful-- a practice the Spy calls 'barbaric' and the Scout calls 'badass'. "So now you talk to yourself?" The Spy asks airily, tugging his mask back down into place and packing up his kit. "I suppose that's what comes of being alone as much as you are, and frying your brain out in the desert." "I don't talk to myself, I was just-- I mean-- Forget about it." "Are you in trouble?" Scout smacks a fist into his palm. "Is it with some guys? 'Cause we'll go mess 'em up right now if it's with some guys. You borrow money from somebody? Man, I got some stories I could tell you, why you never borrow money from some guys, especially if it's for gambling and especially if the guy's called 'The Animal'." "What?" I blink at him. He slides down off the sink and grabs his razor and towel out of his locker. "Yeah. You don't wanna piss a guy like that off. Unless you got a friend-- like me-- who could bust up some kneecaps and stuff." "Scout, I never borrowed money from anyone, I don't gamble, and I've never met a bloke who called himself 'The Animal'." I shake my head. "Although I've met guys named after animals. Not dangerous, though. And I'm an assassin." "Then what kind of trouble are you into?" "I didn't say I was in trouble." I grumble, but it's too late, the Spy's leaning on my shoulder. "Ah! Woman trouble!" "Oh ho ho! You holding out on us, big guy?" Scout punches my other shoulder. "If you both don't knock it off, you're gonna have to ask Medic to fit you for a new set of teeth." I growl, and Scout backs off, but of course the Spy wouldn't. "Your lady, yes? The one you write to?" "What, his ma?" "The other lady he writes to." He rolls his eyes, reaching past me to slap the Scout's arm. "She is not tired of you already?" "Don't even think about it." I shove him off, a little harder than I might've. "And no. I'm-- I'm just meeting her, that's all. Dunno if she'll... like getting to know me in person, that's it. No trouble, no getting tired, just nerves, and Scout, don't bother taking the piss because I am so far past caring about that at this point." "No, that's cool." He shrugs awkwardly. "I wasn't gonna tease you about it. Hell, I mean... Just whatever, right? He's the one giving you a hard time about it, not me, geez." Scout turns around and starts messing with the taps and working up a lather between his hands, just with the bar soap. Spy leans back against his own sink and gives a slow, broad shrug. "Just don't hold out on us when it comes time to sit around getting progressively more drunk with your friends, I am getting tired of always telling the dirty stories and never hearing them." "Don't hold your breath." I snort, grabbing my stuff and making my exit. What am I getting myself into? Why can't I just say no to stuff when she looks at me all... all-- I don't know, all woman! Who in his right mind would agree to showing up to an enemy spy's hotel room just because he flashes a sweet, hopeful look at a person? Just because her voice goes soft when her eyes do, all of her does... and it's been a long time since I've had something soft, but what on earth is it making me think the bloody BLU Spy out of everyone could be that something? What's wrong with me? My stomach's in knots the whole drive into town. What the hell's the protocol for a thing like this? I buy flowers. They're pretty dead, but... I mean, they're flowers. You take girls flowers. At the front desk of the hotel, there's a little man in glasses who waves me up. "Man in number twelve?" He passes the key over to me before I can confirm it. "Your lady friend said you gave her your key and she was afraid you might be stuck in the hallway while she was in the shower." "Oh. Er. Right. Thanks." He nods curtly, and after a few darting glances to the patch on my sleeve, he seems to do his best to ignore me entirely in hopes I'll go away without blowing something up. Well... guess RED doesn't have the greatest reputation around these parts. I take the stairs slowly, counting each step, pushing myself through them. Whether or not it's a massive mistake, I'll find out soon enough, but I'm not doing a runner. Even if I couldn't tell myself why, I agreed to this meeting. And that's more than I could say about the date I tried to make, isn't it? I know when her letters are dated, and when mine always used to arrive, I knew damn well she wouldn't have time to write me back saying she couldn't show, not by that Saturday. Either she'd've had to show up, or she'd've been the bad guy for it. I didn't mean that to... to be that way, either, but there it is, hindsight and all. I put the Spy in a corner with that and everything that happened, some of it always should've been on my shoulders. Least I can do is go through with something I agreed to in person. I slide the key into the lock, rapping on the door as I turn the knob. "Come in," She's not directly across from the door, but as I come into the room she's there, in the corner by the door into the bath, and... "You look lovely." I offer, and her hand flies up to her mouth. "I-- Sorry, was that... wrong?" She shakes her head. "I have not been 'lovely' in years, that's all. Too many years, and... These are for me?" I shut the door and hand over the flowers, the long stems all crushed from being carried under my arm, the newsprint around them probably sweaty between that and my hands. And of course the flowers themselves have seen better days, but she lights up at them anyway. It wasn't lying, calling her lovely. No, I mean, I wouldn't think looking at her she'd been born a-- a regular woman or anything, but... I mean, she just is, though. Her hair's the dark brown of a cup of black coffee, shorn down to scraps of curl against her scalp, something like a Joan of Arc about to be martyred. The planes of her face are still the Spy's, but her eyes seem wider, her cheeks seem pinker, her lips seem fuller, softer. And her dress... It's maybe thirty years out of fashion, damned if I know exactly. It's not modern, but it fits her, the skirt skimming past her narrow hips to go all soft and floaty about her calves. Wide straps, but no sleeves to go all wrong on too-broad shoulders, just a sheer little shawl, and her arms are so smooth, and her chest, and I was expecting what I always figured the Spy's body would look like, but this is somehow different. Her fingers tap against her collarbone, when she smiles up at me over the flowers, and I don't mean to peek down the front of the dress where it sort of swoops down, and I don't expect anything, but there's a surprising little hint of cleavage. Not much, but any is... I mean, any is, which is... She smells like flowers, like the lavender perfume from the letter and the handkerchief, but spicier somehow, when we're standing close enough that I can smell her. And she's tall, even in stocking feet, but not as tall as I'm used to her being in the Spy's shoes. More than the height, it's the stockings that interest me, really... disappearing up under her skirt, and she wears stockings. And who knows what else, under all of that! And I've never seen the Spy look uncertain before, but when I came in the door, before I'd had the chance to speak, I saw Genevieve look uncertain. "It is not much of a transformation... I am without my makeup-- without makeup that suits me-- and my hair is..." She reaches up to tug at it, just for a second, before her hand flutters off to her side. "And I-- But thank you." "It's nice to finally meet you properly, Ginny." I offer her my hand. She places hers in it, not like a handshake at all. I have no real experience in kissing ladies' hands, but I bumble through doing it, and she seems more relaxed, after. I feel more relaxed, myself. I'd been so nervous about what I'd find, about how I'd feel about it, about what I'd ever do with the Spy in a dress, but... Well, here she is. And when she's here, it doesn't seem as weird as I thought it could be.
>>57 That's understandable. Glad that the problem in enjoyment was cleared up. ---/-/--- Ch.XX- SPY ---/-/--- Lovely. He called me lovely. He thinks I'm lovely. If things do fall apart, then I have that. For tonight, I am lovely, and for once, I feel it, even knowing how I really look, how I must look, to be lovely in spite of that... I feel fantastic. "Would you like to sit?" I offer. There really is only the bed for it, but... well, I don't think I would mind, sitting on a bed with a handsome man. He... he is that. Why I should have never looked at him before, I don't know, he is... he is the kind of man I could get used to looking at. "Thanks." He holds me hand all the way over to the bed, and stands until I sit. "You know, if you would rather I not fall in love with you, you might stop being so sweet to me." I smile up at him. "Dunno." Beneath the permanent weathered sunburn, he seems to blush. "Could be all right." "I would like to think. Someday, I could cook for you... maybe it would have to be away from here. But you could take me away from here, once we are both free. I hate to break a contract, but... I do not have to re-sign, when my time is up. I will have enough to retire comfortably on." "If BLU pays you anything like what RED pays me, you'd have enough to retire a bloody village comfortably!" He laughs. "You can't retire a village comfortably, what would happen to commerce?" I smirk, taking his hand again. "Mm... you have big hands. I like that." "Oh, um..." He definitely blushes. "They came free with the arms." I didn't mean anything terribly suggestive by it, but I don't mind him thinking I did. But... they make my own look small, dainty. "Tell me about yourself?" I trace the creases of his palm. "Not too much more to tell." "About when you ran away from home." I remind him, and he chuckles, ducking his head. "Yeah, that... Well, I wasn't too much more than a dumb kid. A Nunga man took me in. Think his plan was to walk me back home once he was sure I wouldn't keel over and die." "Nunga?" "Aborigine. The Nunga were closest to us. Couple even worked for my dad, when he needed temporary hires and they were nearby. Dad would hire 'em, and there were some who wouldn't, and... I mean, my old man wasn't... he wasn't a terrible racist-- at least, he wasn't when I was a kid. He didn't think he was better'n anyone because his people were English settlers instead of convicts, Italians, or Aborigines, but... I think he did think he was better'n some because he owned a house and land and worked regular. So he'd hire anyone who'd do the work, but he liked the men who worked to fit in with... with 'society'. And one fella I remember, when I was a kid-- Tom, or at least he went by Tom-- he stayed on a long time because he wanted to. Fit in, I mean. Dress like the other jackaroos and talk and act like them. He wanted men like my dad to respect him and treat him like a part of the group. And I guess I understand a little, because when I grew up, and I knew I didn't want any part of my old man's life, I knew I did want to earn the respect of the folks Tom left." I nod, and his hand closes around mine. "And the man who took you in let you stay?" "Not at first... at first we didn't even get along, really, because I was a dumb kid and no one ever made me face up to all the stuff I didn't know before, and because I reckon I was nervy from letting myself get dehydrated-- wandered away from following the creeks, like a complete idiot. But he was a good man. He let me earn his respect, even though it was hard. Said it wouldn't be easy for me to fit in, since I didn't have a family with them, or any ancestors, but he... after a while, after he made me rest and drink some water and cool my head, and after we got to really talk, he said if I wanted to work for it, even if I never really got accepted by everyone, I'd have one friend with them. Said I sounded like a boy who loved the land, and I only needed to learn to be smart enough that it wouldn't kill me." He laughs, and so do I. "Well, it did not kill you." "Nah. Came close a couple times. But he taught me how to live with the land instead of trying to live against it, and those lessons translated whether I was in the desert, the bush, even overseas... I learned the important things. The respect. It was good, I... they were lessons I wanted to learn, and people I wanted to learn from. And I made a few friends. I didn't have much success when I did go back home, trying to get my dad to understand the traditional ways. Some of 'em would've made his work easier, too. Anyway, then I got called up for Nasho, so... Mum was glad the war was over before my stint, and dad said I'd've done 'em proud if it hadn't been, but... y'know, then he wasn't too proud I kept on sniping once I left the army. Come on, I'm not that interesting, tell me about you?" "I had a very glamorous mother." I sigh, folding his hand back around mine. "The first time I got into her makeup, when I was a child, she... she was not angry. She just scrubbed it off and sent me to play. I heard her tell my father, at his age this is normal, he spends all day watching me, soon he will start copying the other boys instead, wait for school. So I did, because I knew it would make them happy. I could imitate anyone. It was fun for me, mostly, a game. To see how long I could be another person. When I was young, I would imitate men or women, or other children, either sex-- because it was a game. It... it stopped being a game, when I knew that it pleased them for me to be a little boy always, and to model myself after men." He nods and strokes his thumb across the back of my hand, I watch the way he studies it, no idea where his thoughts are. Merely following the way my skin moves beneath the firmness of his touch, or far, far away? "My father took me to work sometimes, after that-- when classes were out and I was old enough. I suppose so that I would spend more time watching men at work, and less time watching my mother keep house and put on her face. Anyway, she never caught me again, I waited until I was old enough to be left home alone, and washed it off before she got back. It was a luxury, just before the war began, too precious to go unnoticed, if I was using it. I stole my own then, out of shops. And then we were invaded, and... and I took one of her old dresses, and I started going out as a girl. It worked, then. My face had not yet matured into... this. It was useful, so it was allowed-- She altered a sort of corset, and padded it out, and put in a pocket inside it, where I could smuggle maps and letters, and said 'be safe'. And I promised her that... that I was just a patriotic young man doing everything he could for his country, and what I could do was this. I didn't want to break her heart, I thought it might, if I told her that I had never felt so free as when we were all seconds away from imprisonment or death..." "You were a spy in the war?" I nod. "We all were... France barely had the chance to fight, stealth and sabotage were all that we had left. But they suited me. That was a long time ago, of course..." Best to stop it there. When we know each other better, if he asks, I will tell him about the first time that I killed a man-- really tell him the story, instead of just alluding to it. I had little choice, the first time, and little guilt. Under other circumstances, I might have been horrified, killing a boy who was no more than eighteen, but he'd reached into my dress, had come out with a handful of cotton and might have realized in a second that there were no breasts beneath that that I merely sought to make look larger, might have realized too many things, and his gun was right there on his hip, and his hip was right there, where he had me boxed in against the wall... "Cold?" He asks, leaning in, and I shake my head. "Remembering too much. My apologies." I offer a wan smile and pull his hand over to rest over my knee. "Take my mind off of it for me?" He swallows, catching the fabric of my dress between thumb and forefinger, the hem inching up as he feels at it. "I'm... I've never... I've done stuff, fooling-around, y'know, army stuff, with men before. And I've been with a couple women, I reckon it's a number I don't need to be ashamed of. The men I was with, I was never attracted to. That's all. So-- I guess that means you're a girl, then, because... I mean, I--" "Think I am lovely?" I reach up to stroke his cheek. "I think I'd like kissing you, and I never did that with blokes. It's just... then sometimes I see you, at work, and I'm not attracted to you. But then I get... I mean, you sort of..." "Change." I nod. "I have to." "Right." "The one you like is the real me." "Yeah. I think I'm getting to know that. It's a little confusing, though, you gotta give me that, to be making time with a girl only for her to turn into your worst enemy in the middle of a word." "I will give you that." "I'm not asking you to change. I know you can't be you, if anyone else comes up on us. And we both get paid to do a job, so I can handle fighting. But if I... if I seem to-- to waver, or... I mean, I'm just working through this." "I understand." I lean in, turning to face him a little better, and moving causes his hand to slide a couple of inches up my leg. "You said you wanted to kiss me? I could allow it." He licks his lips, and then they are on mine. They are like his hand, warm and just a little chapped by the sun and desert air, and when the moment of hesitation passes us by, he does kiss well...
Abandoning Thread
I am loving this! Please don't ever stop Anne! Why do your stories affect me this way I will never know. But they are so good and I can never get enough of them.
Hey Anne! Just wanted to offer some critiques if you're interested. The main problem I had, and sounds like others had too, is that Spy's gender identity is introduced through Sniper's subjective narrative. It's very confusing because we're sifting through his character trying to ascertain what's really happening. I think it would be really helpful if you injected some objective narrative just to clarify if Spy is trans* or what, and then let it unfold from the characters' perspectives. Most people, including myself, are rather illiterate when it comes to trans* issues so we need a bit of information to latch onto. Also, I agree with Dots that the pacing is a bit off. Sniper is presented as a straight man in the 60's so there's a lot of ignorance and prejudice insinuated into this story just because of the context. Sniper seems way too accepting of this situation, especially when readers aren't quite sure what's going on with Spy. If there's more loathing and tension between them, with Spy being worried about his secret getting out, and Sniper dealing with socially-sanctified transphobia, you could raise the stakes a lot more in this story. The more the stakes are raised, the bigger the payoff for the readers. I thought the big reveal of Spy's gender identity a little anticlimactic, given the potential of the subject matter. Just my two cents, at any rate. I like that you've taken the time to write trans* characters. Not enough of that, in general.
gotta say i was enjoying this until the weird racist turn of events with the sniper's dad. to paint the aborigines with the same ~magical native~ brush as white ppl often use on native americans is bad enough, but then to name the one that wanted to be more like the white men and abandoned his culture tom? maybe that was a very unfortunate coincidence, and i choose to believe it was, because i've never thought of you as the type of person that would so blatantly insert an uncle tom character into one of your fics.
>>63 >>64 I am really grateful for the critique here. I mean seriously grateful, because... yeah, at some point the last segment in particular really went off the rails. I knew there were things I didn't like about it when I posted it, which really should have been a sign to me to maybe take a step back and not post it. Of course, I didn't realize what all of them were until after I did, and I feel really awful about it. I think a lot of the Sniper backstory doesn't serve the story at this point, but I was putting it in to try and offer some balance so it wasn't just her talking about herself and him sitting there saying nothing in return. Hindsight being everything, I shouldn't have tried to do something other than my standard Sniper backstory, because within this particular fic, there's no way for me to treat it right, and it muddles things up and... yeah. And thanks for trusting it was an unfortunate coincidence with the name-- it was, my usual system for naming characters who have little to no bearing on the story but need to be named something is to name them after people, and I wasn't thinking about the history of racial conflict in America when I picked that one. Again, I feel very bad about not catching something that would leave such a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. I would like to take some extra time to really examine upcoming things with a clearer head to make sure there aren't other really unfortunate coincidences, or further clumsy mishandling of things-- not just that one issue, but also the main plot and the pacing and clarity. I feel like I let down the readers who trusted me to avoid that kind of error in judgment, and I feel like I let down the story itself and the characters, and myself. I would welcome anyone's opinion on whether the last scene needs to be completely reworked. It's something I would like to do for myself, but I've got no way of removing/editing what's already there and I don't know if that would make it worse at this point... (to be honest, tonight I'm not thinking too straight anyway, because I was an idiot and went to a mall, where I had a huge panic attack) So anyway, thank you for taking the time to point out where I strayed, in an up-front but non-accusatory manner, and my apologies for how the last couple chapters went. I would like to make this right, and I appreciate having the concrit a lot. I honestly feel like being in this fandom has made me a better writer, not just when it comes to technical things, but when it comes to learning how to handle dealing with sensitive subjects (even when I fail), and how to take the notes. Again, right now, I am very much welcoming opinions on what would make this right. I know there's no pleasing all people all the time, but the last thing I wanted was to really offend or hurt anyone, and I do want to be very careful in cleaning up my mistakes to not just make them all over again.
Hmm, I think the problem, Anne, is that you touched in a very charged subject and it didn't come off as deliberate. Sniper and his dad's reaction make sense in the context. If he's in his 40s in 1968, it'd be over 20 years ago when he was a teenager. Australia is still rife with racism and back then it would be even worse so, through his subjective narrative, that attitude is something I'd actually expect. The dramatic irony is appropriate. As for the Uncle Tom caricature, I agree that it comes across as heavy handed to have your one man named Tom. However, I've seen people do this so it's not so far-fetched to portray someone coping the Uncle Tom way to survive. What should be fleshed out, in my opinion, is the way these guys survived off the land. Take the ambiguity out of it. I think it's realistic for the times, but if you don't want to go into the nitty gritty and dance over PC laser beams, you should get rid of it completely. It doesn't really contribute to the plot. You could make the man some old bushman or something.
this is the native anon from above. i'm not australian, so i can't rly comment on yt/aboriginal relations, but i imagine they're similar to yt/ndn relations in the US and tbh, with the wholesale appropriation of native culture by the white hipster lately, i'm on a super hair trigger. a white kid leaving his ~oppressive~ father (who really only wanted him to follow his footsteps) and being rescued in the desert by a native man who takes him in and teaches him to live off the land and engages in weird ritualistic rites with tiger snakes might not be unrealistic, but coming to me in the form of a story written by a white girl to further the plot of a white man doesn't leave me with good feelings. basically, what bothers me is there's one native dude in this story and he's a total plot device, used for the same purpose as every native dude in every white narrative ever.
>>67 Did you mean "Magical Negro"?
>>68 no, i didn't. that's a completely separate issue considering neither white ppl nor black ppl are native to either australia or the US. i'm talking about the tendency of white people to turn people indigenous to any country (aboriginals, native americans, even white scots or celts in stories that are supposed to take place in ancient times) into these magical, live off the land, all wise and all knowing beings who are only there to use their knowledge of the land to help a white person through his struggle.
Let's just not invoke the farce that is SJ dumblr. The author's clearly willing to make amends, so unless the problem persists, I wouldn't worry about it. We should all focus on the important things that unite us here. Porn!
70, it *is* important. And people are discussing it with the author, who wants to get it right and has specifically asked for people's thoughts on it (though even if she hadn't, it's not like it's forbidden to criticise any fics posted here). I'm not sure what your problem is, frankly.
With relation to Spy, I'd disagree that it's confusing; I didn't find it to be particularly so. With Sniper not being super judgey/transphobic, again I don't see that as necessarily being a problem - obviously the TF2verse is not our universe in some fairly major ways, and I think it's fine to imagine/portray a less transphobic world. And even in a heavily transphobic setting, when it comes to individual relationships, people can be surprisingly accepting. In terms of the idea that the emotional payoff is bigger/better if Sniper reacts transphobically, I dunno - that's usually the way that trans*-themed fanfics (esp. ones by cis people) go, and it can often end up reading as kinda cheap/exploitative. I personally enjoy reading trans*-themed fics where for once not everyone is super-transphobic.
For some reason I can't quote on TF2chan. Curses. So this is @ 72. Fair enough. Let me put it this way, then. I personally found the accepting attitude to be bizarre and inconsistent with Sniper's character as he's set up in this story. Not necessarily transphobic, but just in general. If someone is duped by the enemy and then confronted with a situation that doesn't yield easily to their understanding, there should be more of a struggle. Does that make sense? I found it was too easy. Whatever the angle the situation is approached through, I just think there should be more struggle because in the end, it's Spy's character and the growing relationship that brings them together again. I can honestly say I was confused as all hell, but I've also been pre-coffee in both posts, lol. I just found I was struggling to keep up because there were so many possibilities about Spy's gender and I wasn't sure which way to go. Even a wee nudge would do the trick. Just something definitive that snaps things into place, because there are loads of hints that something is different with Spy, but I found they could've easily represented a transvestite rather than a transsexual, and vice versa. I'm enjoying this story, I'm just SO CONFUSE.
72 here. lawlspy: Yeah, I do see what you mean when you put it like that. I didn't find it so jarring, but I can see what you're saying re: the lack of struggle, although he wasn't really duped. I guess I'm finding it OK because Sniper calms down when he realises that genderwise he *wasn't* duped (although Spy has been presenting as male for working/safety reasons, so I guess Sniper might consider *that* to be dishonest). Also, I can see that Sniper could reasonably have been more mistrustful when he realised that Spy already knew it was him (and could have known all along - not unreasonable to mistrust the word of an enemy spy). Anyway, fair enough, and I'm in agreement with your and others' points wrt race; hopefully these issues can be sorted. In general, I am enjoying the story.
I don't find anything confusing about this story, but I have read it at least ten times. Genevieve states fairly plainly and frequently that she's a woman, and Medic states fairly plainly and loudly that she has a penis, so it seems pretty clear to me that she's a transwoman.
Spy is a guy in a dress, A sweet Transvestite from Transexual, Transalvania! but with the heart and mind of a lady
Personally, I don't care what equipment Spy has down there. Whatever, it's pretendy fun times. Spy could be an alien from outer space and I'd still give the same feedback. My issue was--and still is--that things are progressing way too quickly from a narrative point of view. At the beginning of the story, Sniper's top priority is a meaningful (anonymous, long distance) relationship, hence the letters; if he just wanted sex that didn't involve his own hand, he'd be trawling bars for one-night-stands or simply paying for them. Meanwhile, Spy's doing it on a lark, because he figures there's no harm in toying with someone's feelings. Then, slowly, things start to change. Sniper starts to want more out of the relationship. Spy starts developing real feelings (did he even get a chance to make that epiphany?). This was done well, subtly, in character, with plenty of room for self-reflection (though less so on Spy's part). Then Spy realizes that Sniper is the anonymous pen-pal. Then, one after another, a series of dramatic events with no real time for the characters to react or for me as a reader to sympathize with how they might feel. Bam! Spy "comes out" to Sniper (pun intended). Bam! Spy tells Sniper that he's a woman. Bam! Sniper's okay with going forward in the relationship anyway. ...wait, what? As I said in my last feedback, Sniper has reasons to not pursue a relationship with the Spy besides being homo- or trans-phobic--and, honestly, I don't see him as such. He's a straight man hoping to find a woman to spend the rest of his life with. Spy is Sniper's enemy, not just in the abstract sense of "they work for opposing companies", but also "they kill each other on a constant basis". Plus, both of them have spent their initial acquaintance period misrepresenting themselves to each other (accidentally or on purpose). Here are questions that I still have about this relationship: 1) What Spy's actual feelings are. Is Spy in love with Sniper, Sniper as he presents himself in the letters, Spy's own mental image thereof, or even just the idea of being in love? (And, of course, that thing I keep harping on, how aware is Spy of his own feelings?) 2) What about Sniper? 3) How are either of them going to reconcile reality with what was presented in the letters? 4) What reason do either of them have to pursue each other, besides "I might be able to tap that" and "the plot of the story is for us to get together"?
People need to stop 1. posting transphobic/ignorant bullshit and 2. misgendering Spy/Genevieve. I'm not sure which part of 'woman = female pronouns' is difficult to understand.
Hey, thanks all for your feedback/patience. I think at this point I do want to move forward and avoid making those mistakes again, and if I ever wind up putting this fic somewhere else, I would be editing a lot out of the last chapter. Again, I really appreciate the concerns raised, both on the backstory problems and on the pacing issues. (and thank you Anon #78, because seriously. My moment of ugly fail is not the start of open season in regards to ignorance vs. decency here) ---/-/--- Ch.XXI- SNIPER ---/-/--- The kiss is... I have no idea what the kiss is. My head starts spinning when my eyes close, and her lips are fine, there's nothing wrong with the kiss, but my chest's in a vise and I can't even tell if it's the good kind or not. I pull away, and she smiles up at me, this soft and unsure look, with her hand up at her collarbone again, and... "I still don't know what the hell I'm doing." I admit. "I don't mean to push." I hold her other hand again. It feels safer than the kiss had. Soft, bare skin, without a trace of the Spy to it. I... I've taken to thinking about them as two different people in a way. Genevieve's the one who writes me and Spy's the one who pisses me off and kills me, and I know it's not right but it gets me through, because I saw it when I hurt her, and I believe her when she says it wasn't to be mean, and I don't want to lose having someone who makes me feel good... but it's hard to feel easy about it when I've also seen her go from soft to hard like that. "You're not pushing." I tell her. "I'm just not sure what we're doing here. I keep thinking it'll just get clear to me, and... well, yeah." "If I stopped coming after you?" She asks, her voice quiet. Would it make it easier? Well... yeah, maybe. Except all the things I thought would make it easier so far haven't done what I thought they'd do, and there's a guilt that washes over me at the idea of making her throw a decent bit of her career just for the chance of making me happier. It would hurt her stats on the field, and her position with her team, and maybe even her bottom line, and I still don't know what it is I need, I just know the different things I want seem real set against each other, with things the way they are. "Don't do that for me." I shake my head, giving her hand a squeeze. "I would not be giving up my career, just switching my focus. I... I thought we were making it work, but... sometimes, I--" "It's hard to see you go back to being him. That's all. You do a good job of it and I..." "Doubt me?" "I just don't know. Ginny, I like you. The you in the letters, I... And this you, I'm fine with. The masks just mess with my head. I'm trying to get past it, and... I don't know. Every idea I have is... wrong, or just... What does this mean to you?" She looks down at our hands, catching her lip up between her teeth. "More than I meant for it to." "Well what's that mean?" I spread my arms, releasing her hand, and she folds them both up in her lap and still won't look at me. "It means I knew I couldn't get too attached to you at the start. I know what I look like... And I know that even with all the makeup, even with a wig, even with girdles and padding and soft, pretty things, underneath it all there are things I couldn't hide forever, if we met." "So... So what?" "And then you sent me a poem." She blinks, fast, and still doesn't quite look at me, and her voice all but cracks. It isn't an answer, more like she hadn't heard me, but in the end I think it's still what I need to hear that's coming. "You sent me a poem that meant something to you, and I could see myself in it, the self I wished I was, and when my team was unbearable and I thought I was going to cry, I remembered it and I felt better, and I didn't know who you were then-- maybe I should have!-- but I wished so hard for a life with the man who sent me that poem." I reach out and take her hand again, and fish her hanky out of my pocket when she reaches to wipe at her eyes. She smiles at me, for that. "It's a good poem." I say. Oh, real brilliant, Mundy, real stunner of a conversationalist you are... "Yes." She laughs. "Loving eyes to watch our coming, loving arms to twine around us-- Tender tendrils, soft and silken, firmer far than iron stay--" "That was the line?" "The one I wanted to see myself in... Maybe if it had been a different poem, even one that I already knew and liked, maybe I would not have found I love-- Maybe I wouldn't have thought so much, about how nice it would be, to... to be the one you came home to." I put an arm around her. How could I not? Loves me? I don't know how I feel. If I love her, or the idea of her, or what, and it's so hard to sort out when she just... just bewitches me when I'm with her, and I don't understand that, either. I wanted to love someone. That was the whole point of it, once. "I don't know what's real with you." I sigh. "I don't mean that. I mean... I mean maybe it's not you at all. I don't know how to trust myself anymore, that's it I think." "You made me want something real, even when I tried to tell myself I didn't." She turns, resting her head against my shoulder, one hand moving to my chest. "I had so many plans, to keep it from reaching that point, but I wanted... I wanted to be real even when I knew I couldn't. I was watching you through the window that night, the cafe. It wasn't to make fun of you." "I know." "No," She gives her head a shake without lifting it, buries her face in the crook of my neck, and her breath's warm and I can feel the silky fabric of her shawl between my hand and her arm... "You don't-- You don't know how badly I wished I could join you. How much I regretted all of the animosity between us when I knew that you were more than what I always thought..." "I don't know how to handle this." I rest my cheek on her head, against the softness of her hair. "It's hard to trust a spy and it's hard to be angry with a sad woman..." "I am both." She admits, with a soft snort. "You called me lovely... you're not at all the man I thought, and why shouldn't I love you? You called me lovely." I hold her close for a minute. Being angry about the truth didn't make me feel any better, and avoiding the truth hasn't, either. So what's left? "I didn't mind fighting and flirting." I let the words out slowly, feeling out each one with some care. "Not when I saw you behind the mask. But..." "But we don't always have that luxury. I know." "So now what? 'Cause I'm all out of ideas." She lifts her head, and her lips brush my cheek, it only stirs back up the smell of her perfume. This doesn't help my thought process any, but it's easier... it's easier than really kissing, doesn't spin my head round quite the same way. "What if I visited you in your van sometime this week? I cook on Tuesday. For the team. They wouldn't notice if I disappeared during dinner, though... It wouldn't be the first time." "What, you wanna bring me a home-cooked meal?" I smile at her. She smiles back, that undeniably female smile that could almost make me forget how much bad blood I'd had with her most persistent mask. It makes me want to, at least. "I do. Maybe now we just... try to see each other sometimes, as each other. And if things still fall apart, at least I can bring you something to... to apologize for all of the deceit. At least that." "I don't want things to fall apart." I touch her cheek, and her hand covers mine to keep it there. The skin is so much softer and smoother than I would have thought, safe from the damage the desert tends to deal out. "No, me also, I don't, but... I have a lot to apologize for." "Reckon we both have." "Sweet of you to say." She sighs, and turns, and her lips touch the heel of my hand, still soft... Nothing about the Spy had ever seemed soft the way that Genevieve seems soft now, and maybe that is enough, I don't know. Maybe time and the fact that I get who she is when she's herself... maybe that's what I really need. "Dinner would be nice."
Ch.XXII- SPY ---/-/--- I wouldn't mind fooling myself for a little while, just this once, if it gets me this. Just a little while of an arm around me, of a gentle touch and a man who can see the real me at least part of the time... I've gone through worse for less. It's just strange to admit to sentiment, out loud, to someone who's seen both sides of me. Hard to admit to myself that at the heart of me, I am ready to retire, that I long for the sweet and simple drudgery of a housewife. Well, a very glamorous housewife, at any rate, with a fair amount of leisure time. I wouldn't hinge my heart on marrying him, of course, there are so many reasons not to. I wouldn't go so far as to say I would never come back out of retirement, though never for a long contract like this one, never for another job that required manhood... but I am willing to admit to myself at least, I am ready to give up the excitement. I can afford to... I could never buy a body, or a softer face, but the rest of the life I longed for I could buy, once my contract is up. Could I take him with me, or follow him, when our time with the war has ended? So much depends on so many little things... It was strange, to find my own animosity for him all but vanish, when I learned to accept his identity, but now... Now here I am, sitting next to a man who cleans up surprisingly nicely-- sitting on a bed, no less!-- and making plans. Maybe things are awkward, maybe things are uncertain, but... well, here we are still. "Dinner, then." I let his hand go, and lean into him again. Without the scents of blood and gunpowder in the air-- and without the whiff of Jarate!-- it's actually rather... pleasant, to be so close. Just the musk of clean skin and soap and leather, an attractive sort of masculine. "I mean... I mean, you wouldn't have told me this, if it wasn't real, would you have?" He asks, and I can feel his chin rest on my head, the movement as he speaks. There's something bewildered in his voice, but it's a thing I can understand well. "You wouldn't have shown me." "No." I wind my arms around him, as his come up around me, one disengaging to catch his weight. I hadn't meant to unbalance him-- not literally on top of everything else!-- but I don't mind it... I don't mind it if we do fall, it's not as though we are falling far. "Sorry." He laughs. I slide a hand to his chest again, pressing gently. "Would you be more comfortable lying down? Not-- not to be forward, or-- Just to talk a while longer. Comfortably." "All right, talk to me." He lowers us both down, and I can feel his heart rate picking up beneath my palm, can feel him take on an awkward rigid posture even 'relaxed'. I try to keep my own breaths deep and even, to carry over. Maybe it will not soothe him, but it is worth trying. "Before we get to the point-- the point where most men and woman are, when they wind up in bed with each other... I just want us both to be clear. About what you would be... in for. About whether you would be comfortable with me. If dinner goes well, and we meet again, and other dinners go well after that, I want you to be prepared. I..." "Prepared? You make it sound like such an ordeal..." He forces a grin and a little chuckle, taking my hand. "It is an ordeal to me at times." I shrug. "It is a-- a-- I mean, I don't normally think of it that way, but it is a penis. A perfectly normal one, according to our Medic." I wish I could read his mind. I cannot even read his face. "Okay." He nods, after the too-long pause. "At this point I can't say it's a surprise, really. Hell, not like I don't know what to do with one of those. Like you said, if a couple dinners go well and we wind up there." "It's just best to be clear well ahead of time, I've found. Back when I was young enough to be pretty enough to cause some confusion over the fact." He is quiet again, but his hand still rests over mine, over his heart. "Gin... on the list of things that make this weird, that's not... I mean, I guess it's on the list, if I'm honest, but it's down at the bottom for me." "After the Spy thing." "I'm working on it." "I know." I sigh, cuddling against him, and relaxing when he continues to allow it. If he had discovered the truth before I did, would I have reacted poorer to it when it came? Well... probably not. If he'd found me out before I found out about him, he'd have stopped the letters, come after me harder on the field, but it would have been so different... maybe too different to guess at. He rolls me onto my back and sits, turning back to smile down at me, and some of the tightness is gone from it. "Can't tell if I'm a romantic or just pathetic." He laughs, reaching for my cheek again. "Oh? If it may be romantic, you'll have to tell me." "Just... if I'm a romantic, then it's something, falling for a girl and sticking with it when she turns out to be your worst enemy, yeah? Bit Romeo and Juliet, but better." "I hope better." I slide my hand up his forearm, to where the muscle lay the thickest, to where I no longer felt bone beneath my traveling thumb. "Otherwise it's just sad, reckon. If I'm so desperate for anyone to take me." I pull his hand down from my cheek to the side of my throat, and guide his thumb to wrap around the front, just lightly. "If I came to you with no letters before, you would not have. If I did not put my life in your hands, you would not have. You are not sad, mon cher, but we are in a strange place together." His hand slides lower, so that his thumb grazes the dip of my collarbone, so that the heel of his hand rests along the neckline of my dress. I watch his eyes sweep over me. There is uncertainty, and calculation, and warmth, before he leans over me. He does not come in for a kiss-- not to my lips, at least. To my forehead, though... When he pulls away again, I prop myself up on my elbows to offer him a smile. "It would not be home cooking, but we could have dinner tonight if you wanted to bring something back here, instead of heading off someplace. We could talk about gardening and poetry face to face." I shrug. "Maybe. Could bring back an early supper, before I head home to think this all over. Look... if I-- if I'm-- No, forget it. I'll come back with something. If it's weird a bit, it's weird a bit, but I'll be back." He gives me another quick kiss to the forehead, before he leaves the room. I hadn't meant going right away-- even for an early supper, it's early yet. But if he needs the time, then perhaps he should have the time. Perhaps we both should, as much as I miss having him to lean against. I wasn't supposed to feel the lack of him so keenly...
Ch. XXIII- SNIPER ---/-/--- Outside on the street, I feel that moment of lost panic again, just thinking how it's way too early to think about dinner. It's still weird that she's been the Spy the whole time, still weird for little bursts, but the rest? I remember my first... for a few years, sort of the only girl in the world, Carrie, who'd come with her dad and her brothers to pick up work during busier seasons when a young jillaroo'd have been in demand. Nothing like Genevieve, to look at them next to each other... and maybe it doesn't help that my clearest memory of Carrie is the topless sunbathing, the way the light went all golden and warm on her skin and the rolling topography of her. Except... even then, the reason that's the memory I hold onto isn't her breasts-- not that it's any great sin to remember those, I reckon, she was older than me then anyway. No, what I remember most is the sly and unashamed way she'd look at me, when it was just the two of us and her half-naked, with this smile that said 'I know a secret'. I'd called her on that, once. Said she looked like she was holding onto some little thing I didn't know whenever she smiled like that. She'd laughed at me, I remember her on her back in the grass and the gentle heave of her chest and the way her eyes crinkled at the corners, and she'd told me of course she knew something I didn't know, they were woman secrets. Over the course of the summer, think she clued me into more than a couple woman secrets when we snuck off away from everyone else, but not the kind she was talking about then. Granted, when I was somewhere stuck between being a kid and being a man, the topless sunbathing grabbed my attention something fierce, but it was the way she smiled at me that had me over the moon for her even when we were split up. That was what I looked for in other girls since... It was what I looked for with girls who wrangled sheep or cattle and spat for distance and swore like dockworkers. It was what I looked for with girls who lived in cities with tight sweaters and moustaches. It was what I looked for in every country I passed through, with women who I guess were looking for an exotic fling from me, if they were looking at all. And Genevieve, when she's not hiding behind being the Spy, has that. She smiles at me with the same soft unnameable something, even stuck with the Spy's face and the Spy's figure. And she's right, there are a lot of things she could have said that I might have been smart to doubt, but the things she did tell me are too dangerous to be a lie. No man would say anything like that for a... for a con. The walk feels like it's clearing my head. For once, even without her in front of me and even without her perfume in my nose, when I think about her, I don't feel conflicted, I don't see the Spy there too. It had been both in my dreams last night, in some strange garden of Eden with a serpent-draped Eve whose face I couldn't look at, and when the snake left, it left me with Genevieve, only for her to turn into the Spy. It had been hard then, had left me wondering who I'd be holding in my arms today, but now it's been put into words for me, the reason a part of me felt like I could trust her even when I didn't think I was ready to forgive the Spy. Yes, they're one person. Yes, every knife in my back was from her, but that was a her that didn't know me beyond the Sniper any more than that me knew her beyond the Spy. Our professional lives. Maybe I will want to avoid running into each other at work a while... the transition between warm and cold in her is hard to watch. But I think I'm ready to accept that it's all her, and she's the girl who... who thought of me as someone knowledgeable in our letters, who loves poetry. Poetry and gardening. And I could know enough about both to survive a real conversation. I stop outside the cafe-- there are other places to eat in town, and they'd all pack up takeaway for me, but it's where I'd seen the Spy that once, and I reckon that means she likes the food all right. I didn't think to ask her what she wanted. Idiot me, but the little chalkboard outside promises the night's special is spaghetti, and it's hard to go wrong with that. I head to the little market, instead of going in. Might as well pick up a bottle of wine, to go with the pasta.
I'm excited to see how the 'date' is going to go.
Ch.XXIV- SPY ---/-/--- The whole wait has my nerves jangling. What if he doesn't come back? What if he decides this is all too much, too strange? What are we prepared to ask of each other, and what are we prepared to give? It's early, I think-- all things considered, early-- for me to ask much. I want him to know what it is he will find with me, that's no kind of surprise to spring on a man. Not that I think it is much of a surprise, when one has the rest of my body to look at, but after meeting me through the letters, if he has thought of sex at all, it hasn't been with my equipment. Then again, he said that wasn't the oddest part of it all. Maybe that is true. Maybe he can deal with it-- maybe until it ceases to be something to be 'dealt with', maybe things will work out and someday the body I am stuck with will not be off-putting, just mine. I don't want it to be the price he pays to be with me, I don't think after all I have done that I am worth that. But I want us to find we still have something. I want him to want to make love to me, eventually, to enjoy it all... I do want him to make love to me. Not tonight, things are still too raw and too new for tonight. On Tuesday? A little soon still, I think, but if he asks me on Tuesday, I doubt I will say no... Well, a little at first, just long enough to be certain that he wants me as I am, but I don't suppose I need to cling to the notion that a nice girl does not, I never have before. I want him. The man he is when we are not fighting, it is like he is... it is like he is as different from that Sniper as I am from that Spy, and... and I like him. I like his face. When he is not scowling or jeering, it is a nice face, and I like those hands that make mine seem small. He is not a big man, but for the most part, beside him I can feel daintier... and he is tall, just tall enough to look up at. And I never knew that his eyes were blue... All the time I have spent in his presence, noticing everything about his posture and his movements and every little detail of the way he works and fights, and I never once noticed the eyes behind his glasses. And now I have, and I do, and... And it is useless to plan alone, of course. Suppose he decides he was lucky to get out when he did, suppose he doesn't come back? No, I sent him out too early, he said he would. He repeated it, even. When sitting on the bed wringing my hands doesn't make that any easier to hold onto, I pace the room a bit, and I am on the verge of throwing myself down on the bed and declaring the whole thing a lost cause after all when the knock at the door startles me out of the idea. "Ginny? Arms're a bit full," "Coming!" I hurry over, to open the door with myself behind it, enough that if anyone else is out in the hallway, they won't see me. He peers around the door and flashes me a smile, holding up a bag. "Takeaway, as promised. Forks are plastic, and we're stuck eating out of the containers, so... not ritzy or anything, but it's still good and warm at least. Tonight's special was spaghetti, I figured..." He has a paper bag tucked under his other arm, and a small book. The bag looks to hold a wine bottle, and the book I am sure I will find out about, but I am intrigued. "I'm sure it's fine." I smile back, fixing the locks before moving to sit on the bed. "Do you want to pretend this is a picnic blanket for a while?" He spreads the food out between us and toes his boots off before folding one leg up under himself. "I brought wine. It, um... I don't know how good it is. It was the most expensive one, which I guess isn't saying much in Teufort, but..." I grab the water glass from the nightstand, chuckling. "Well, it will have to be good enough for tonight. I hope you don't mind sharing a glass. Clearly I did not pack well enough for this picnic." "That's all right." He gets the bottle open, with a pocket knife corkscrew, and takes the first swig out of the water glass. "There, don't think there's any more bits of cork floating around..." The spaghetti is... well, it is fine. Not perfect, not at all Italian, but the sauce is good anyway, and it is food, and I am sharing it with a man who could have run off on me and didn't. The wine is abysmal, until the second glass or so-- well, the third or fourth, but then, we are sharing-- when his hand lands on my calf and the room is warm enough to abandon my shrug, and it seems like I giggle after every other thing he says. He gives my leg a warm squeeze as I wrap up my explanation of why I haven't been able to have a garden. "That's a shame. Well, it's all a shame, innit? Guess there's no point talking about desert gardening, you... you won't be in the desert when you leave here, will you?" "No. I always assumed I would retire to France. I... I would not want to live far from Paris. Near Versailles, maybe. Someplace where I could go into the city, or to walk through the palace gardens like a tourist, but... but someplace where I would have my privacy. It is all open to change, of course, but..." "But you miss France. Can't say I blame you. Teufort can't be much compared to... well, I mean, France. Full of museums and palaces and all that, very cultured I reckon." I laugh, and place a hand on his. "Some places are. Some places are not. But... but they are beautiful to me, even the low places. They were where I could be myself... even if I could not always be treated as myself, I could be myself. Why, where did you always see yourself going, after this?" "I'd go back to Oz, at least for a visit." He nods. "I don't need to get a house and settle there, but I'd see my parents and a few familiar places, at least. I mean, I didn't even know if settling would be for me, you know? Always seemed like a bit of an impossible dream." "Tell me about the birds in Australia?" I lean in towards him, the mess of our 'picnic' still spread out between us, but easy enough to shove back into the takeaway bag. "Which ones?" "I don't know, what are the best ones?" "Well... Cockatoos. You might like cockatoos, they're... I mean, they're loud and they can be pests, but plenty of people keep 'em as pets, too, so... They're a bit like parrots. I guess I don't know if you like parrots..." "I am not opposed to parrots." I smile. "Then you wouldn't be opposed to cockatoos." He smiles back, topping the glass off with the very last of the wine. "There's emus," "Tell me about the kookaburras?" "Ah. Now I like those. Even though they are definitely pests, when you're trying to cook something out on a camp stove. Not at all shy, they'll poach your dinner while you're cooking it." "But you like them." "I do." "Do they really sound like they are laughing?" "Bit like it, yeah... I mean, weird laughing, but-- Wait, you know in films when there's a jungle?" I smile and shake my head. "Are you really gonna make me do a call?" I nod. It is hard to tell, past the sunburn and the flush of the wine, but I think he does blush a little, and he rolls his eyes and his smile is nervous, but he does it, and I clap. "No need to make fun." "I am not! I think it's marvelous! I can only imitate people." "More useful for you, though." "Well, yes... but still. Do you do any others?" "Not half so well." He shrugs. "Fell pretty far out of practice on that one, too. Besides, any more and I think the next room'll put in a complaint." "Then tell me about the book." I point to it, just past his hip and turned so that I can't see the title. "Oh. I... I just thought... It's, um-- It was in my camper. Poems. If you... if you wanted." "Will you read me one? If I clear all this away, and we make ourselves comfortable?" He nods, picking it up and turning it over in his hands. The pages are soft at the edges, foxed and feathered, the paperback cover has little tears, crackling in the shiny finish of it. I stuff the trash back into the bag and move it to the floor beside the bed, and he moves to sit at the head, with a pillow wedged at the small of his back and room to stretch his legs out, and I could sit beside him... I could sit beside him, but instead I curl up, closer to the bed's center, and rest my head on his knee.
On 3 ... Awwwwww *^_^* ... sorry about the emoticon but this new chapter left me so warm and fuzzy (on the inside) and grinning like an idiot (on the outside), I just couldn't resit.
Thank you! ---/-/--- Ch. XXV- SNIPER ---/-/--- "But now the thirst so hideous has left me. I live within a coolness, among calm men, And yet am strange. A something has bereft me Of a seeing, and strangely love returns; And old desires half-known, and hanging sorrows. I seem agaze with wonder. Memory burns. I see a thousand vague and sad tomorrows. None sees my sadness. No one understands How I must touch her hair with bloody hands." I finish, mouth dry after only the one short poem, but then it's not the reading that's done it. She's all but in my lap, and down at the end of the bed there's her legs, and her skirt ridden up to show off one knee, and... I don't remember the room being this warm. Wine hitting me? I hadn't meant to reach for her when I did, either, but her hair is soft under my fingers and her sigh softer... "That's so sad." Her hand comes up to rest on my shin, and her shoulders are bare, that flimsy little wrap gone, and I could touch... could slide my hand from her hair to her shoulder and touch bare skin. "Leon Gellert." I say, and I want to say they're not all sad, except the ones I know all are... but with the war, I've come to appreciate war poets in a way I didn't before, and with her, I've come to appreciate The Husband... I place a hand on her shoulder, but I pull back when she seems to curl in on herself at it. "Sorry," I say and she says, and she looks up at me with a broken little smile. "Sorry." I repeat. "No... Really, I--" "I didn't mean to startle you." "It's not that. It's my shoulders..." "You don't like them?" I dare another touch. They are broad and narrow all at once, delicate and thin in spite of their span, and her skin is so pale, cool and smooth... "I suppose I just wish they were softer. I always wished I'd had small, round shoulders. They're so much broader than my hips, I feel like I look--" "You look fine." I promise. Her skin warms up quick enough under my hand. There's a thin little scar that starts at the back of her shoulder and disappears under the strap of her dress, and her breath catches as my finger follows along the line of it. "Like an athletic girl, anyway. Dunno how interested I'd be in one who wasn't about as strong as me." She sits up, scooting up to sit next to me at the head of the bed, and it's just a shame the flouncy bits of her skirt have covered her knee up again, but the look she gives me is... That look is everything. I lean in, put a hand on her waist, and her dress is... slippery, between the slicker, thicker fabric of the body of it and the smooth sheer layer over, the same stuff as her wrap. "I might have to kiss you." I smile, and I'm close enough to smell the last fading notes of her perfume on the skin, that spiciness that never quite came out on cloth or paper that keeps the lavender from seeming so sleepy on her. "Oh my... I might have to let you." She smiles back, none of that sadness left, just the soft, sly secrecy. It does things to me I'm not prepared for, how bad I want to learn the curve of it with my own mouth. I kiss her, I have to kiss her, and she's sweet and yielding as any woman I've ever kissed... Whatever she feels about her hips and her shoulders, when she kisses me back, with one of my hands at each, I can only think she feels lovely. I break away from her lips, with a sudden self-consciousness as I do, at the idea that the wine and the pasta sauce can't have left my breath very nice, but her throat is there... seems longer and slenderer without the shirt collar and mask and tie. Up under her ear, there's that whiff of her perfume, and of her, and the taste of her skin is clean as the sweetness of fresh cold water, with a little tiny hint of that same gentle spiciness. "Oh, darl..." I rest my forehead against her shoulder, breathing deep and feeling shaky. "I could kiss you all night." "Careful, or I could let you..." There's a brittleness to her laugh, and her grip tightens on my hair, and when I breathe out I can see the neckline of her dress flutter just a little bit. I nibble along her collarbone, for the soft moan it gets me, and at the back of her shoulder, my fingers slide back under the wide strap of her dress. I don't know what I want... I want a lot. I want her. I don't want to rush things, but I want her, and it's strange to realize that I honestly don't care what the body in all the frills is, as long as it's hers. It's freeing to feel that, after all the worry, to know her and want her and... Love her, really. I think I could say that, and feel it's true. I kiss my way along her shoulder, until her lips are at my ear. "Gin?" I turn to catch a quick peck from her, and she's got this look for me, soft, so soft, and about as wondering as mine must be. "This... this is nice." Her hand moves to my cheek. "I like your lips." "Oh. Erm. I like yours." I have a loose handful of her dress in my hand, still resting over her hip, but it's enough to draw her skirt up, to put her knee back on display. I let go, though it stays rucked up even when I do, and when she merely leans in towards me, I curve a hand around her calf. "Mm... dinner tonight was lovely." "Good. I'm glad. I... The walking around helped me. Cleared my head a lot. I'm not afraid of this, or of you, and..." And I want to stay. I want to spend the night with my arms around her, want to know if the last little bit of her relaxes when she sleeps or if she's wound tight and vigilant even then. Definitely too far, for tonight. I can't ask her for that. She beams at me, grabs me in for a quick kiss before blushing into her hand. "Tuesday, then... Tuesday we'll have a lovely time again?" "Tuesday." I nod.
Gah! I need Tuesday probably more than those two!
Dear god is it Tuesday yet?
I must agree with anon86, Tuesday will never come fast enough (for both them and us) ... and that kiss was so ... hot (so hot, that it must have fried my brain because I cannot find a better word to discribe it)
>>88 Also you cannot seem to spell "describe". (I'm not saying that to insult! I'm pointing it out as evidence that the kiss was, indeed, HOT.)
>>89 Apparently my brain got fried worst than I thought not only did I loose my vocabulary but also my ability to spell.
Glad you guys are enjoying things! ---/-/--- Ch.XXVI- SPY ---/-/--- The stew can only rise so far, with the ingredients I have to start with... there is little promise in tinned beef and vegetables, and even the emergency bit of shopping I did on Sunday can only take it to 'all right'. Good enough for the team, but for cooking for a date... Cooking for a date! Just the idea has me giddy in spite of the stew's shortcomings. Between that and the bread, there's a good solid meal, if not a great one, and the team doesn't really grant much importance to my disappearances. I set aside a couple of Thermoses full of stew and one loaf of bread before I bring dinner out to the table, and when I slink off, I don't think any eyebrows are raised. I think they've long since learned I sometimes can't stand company. I get dinner packed up, slip past the team and to my room so that I can bring along a garment bag with my dressing gown-- I don't dare change into something more 'me' for the trip out, but at least when I get there I can trade some of the suit for something more comfortable. Something less 'Spy'. The trip out is mercifully uneventful, dusk is falling and I have my watch, and there is something about seeing the warm light of his camper in the distance that makes me feel almost weightless. I knock, as best I can with dinner and dressing gown encumbering me. "Arms are a bit full." I call. He opens the door with a grin. "Come on in, got dishes ready and space cleared for ya." I let him take the bag carrying both bread and Thermoses, and he kisses my cheek in the process, even with the mask in place. "There's a fresh loaf of bread and there's a beef stew. Turn around?" He eyes the garment bag and shrugs, turning to busy himself with dinner. I take the mask off first, turned to the corner where even without the curtains drawn I wouldn't be seen, and then I shed the top half of my suit, down to the soft undershirt, before wrapping myself in the dressing gown and toeing out of my shoes to slip my trousers off. "Granted, it is a little forward, coming to dinner dressed like this," I call over my shoulder. "But it didn't seem right to wear all of that." "I... am not complaining." The weight of his eyes on me is exciting, not uncomfortable... flattering, even. It traces the small open gaps of the dressing gown and the places where it drapes well, darts between glimpses of collarbone and knee. I pull my gloves off and set them on the suit before moving to the table. "Shall we?" "Right. Right. Got you a bowl." He gestures to it, flushing. "Thank you." My foot bumps his under the table, and it is by accident, but I am in no real hurry to remedy the moment of contact. "This is real good." "Well... it's what I could do with what I had." My turn to go a little red. "I tried to make it something you would enjoy." "Mm, well it is that." "Thank you." I duck my head, glance back up at him, and... And it's sweet, it really is, the way he smiles back at me, the way it's easier than I had feared to have a quiet meal, to relax. And when my hand rests on the table a while, his moves to cover it, and... It's perfect. We eat, mostly in silence. Talking can come after, but while there are frequent little glances and his hand spends plenty of time holding mine, his focus is for dinner, and that is flattering as it would be to have it on me. Nice, to have my efforts appreciated so well. I move to sit beside him after, and it does not exactly escape my attention when he goes for a breath mint. "May I?" He nods, passing one over and sliding an arm about my shoulders. "Please. I mean-- Er, just-- If you want one, yeah." "I am sorry, for the way things went at first." "So am I. I'm not sorry you wrote me. I'm not sorry I like you." "No, me also... I am not sorry for that. Maybe we had to hurt a little before we could know each other. If that is the case, then I am not sorry at all." "I still am, a bit. Said some pretty mean things when I was mad and I didn't know better." I shrug and lean into him. "Let's talk of something else now. We could waste all evening arguing over who has more to be sorry for, but wouldn't you rather waste it on something more fun?" "Wouldn't call fun with you a waste." He grins, his hand slipping down to squeeze at my ribs, and he chuckles when I jump and giggle. "Ticklish?" "Some of the time. When handsome men surprise me." He turns, his other arm coming up around me, and I relax into the first few kisses, to the slide of his hands up and down my back. I draw back, before I can be too lost to it. "Gin? Sorry-- I can behave." "No, it isn't that..." I grab his retreating hands, hold onto them in the little space between us. "I want... I want things to go the same way that you do, I think. I love the way I feel with you, and the way you feel, I just-- I just wanted to remind you, I am not what you bargained for when we started writing, that is all." "No. Reckon you're more than I bargained for." He moves both my hands to one of his, freeing up the other to cup my chin. "Would still like to make love to you. If that's what you want." I nod, guiding his hand to the opening vee of my dressing gown. His hands are warm and just a little rough, and he touches me like I'm something precious, like he hasn't seen the things I'm capable of-- hasn't fallen to them himself. There's nothing to do with a man like that but love him a little, and I lean into his touch with a sigh. He fumbles with the sash of it, hand stroking over my knee on the way, and he looks up at me with something almost like wonder at that, at the sheer stockings, at unbelting the dressing gown to find the soft, thin undershirt and the garters clipped to my panties. His thumb brushes over the front of those, and I moan. "Thought you said you had a...?" "I do." "Where do you keep it?" I can't help a giggle at that, and I shrug out of the undershirt first, before unclipping my garters and sliding the panties off carefully. Even with them gone, as long as I am tucked into place, the hair does a fair job of hiding things, but I go ahead and untuck just the penis, for his benefit. Considering the way he's been affecting me, it is a little bit of a relief. He loses something of his look of consternation, though some of the wonder sticks around as he reaches behind, a couple of fingers sliding up between my legs for a feel. He is good enough not to focus on it, that is a bigger relief. Once all the parts are accounted for, he is not fixed on my genitals. And to be fair, I do not mind where he does focus, don't mind the first two fingers stroking across the little cavity where the rest is still tucked away, over the bit of sensitive flesh there. "Soft..." He nuzzles the side of my throat, and if I wasn't lost before that... No one has ever called me 'soft' before... When I was young enough to be pretty, I was pretty. And then, when I was not, I was still 'pretty', albeit with a wink and a nudge, from men who still assumed I was a man in a dress and should be made love to accordingly. I have wanted to be soft. I have mourned the lack of softness I was born for, I have invested in lotions and kept as much of my skin out of the sun as possible and dressed to hide the sharp angles nature gave me, I have loved 'soft' and thought I might never really be, never enough for a man who liked softness. To be soft enough to please him, that I love. I unbutton his shirt, while he pets at me and sucks marks into my skin, get him undressed without losing too much contact, and my stockings have rolled down without the clip-on garters so that the only thing holding them up is the socks I cover them up with, and then he offers me a hand to get up to where his bed is hidden away and I leave my undershirt behind. I am not free from the self-conscious streak that I imagine always plagues first times. My chest is too flat, and a work day has left me without any of the things that might lend the illusion of curves, but the skin at least is smooth and hairless, and when his hands start sliding up my ribcage once more, I push them up and in just to guide the skin into a little false cleavage. His lips follow the line down, and his body rests over mine, close enough to feel the heat of him, and I don't mind being hard against him if he does not mind that I am. "How do you like to?" He pants, lifting his head, and I can make out a few of the rising little bruises he's been sucking into place. "Between my legs, just..." He nods, spitting into his hand and slicking himself up, and oh... Oh, that is nice. Another time, another time for everything else, but if he can get off on just the friction between my thighs, that is where I want him now. It may be all illusion, but illusion is not so bad, and his breath against my throat is wonderful, his arms around me and the thrust of his hips... I touch myself, just a little, down between us. Enough to get off just after he does, and even after, he never stops kissing my neck, whispering little things I barely hear and can't make out. He sighs and lifts his head, bringing his lips to mine. "Mm... was that all right for you?" I nod, though I can't quite meet his eyes. As lovely as he's been, as wonderful as he is, it's a little hard to look at a man when you've just come across his stomach, I think. "Ginny? I mean, you finished all right, so...?" "That's the problem." I admit, looking up at him with a wry smile. "Not a problem, not really. I don't mind sex even with the body I have, except it's so messy, that's all." "There's plenty of girls who squirt." He shrugs. "Really?" "You didn't know?" "I have never had sex with another woman." "Oh. Well, some girls go off. I mean, I know it's not the same and all, but if that's the only thing bothering you." "I don't know." I shake my head. "It's... it's always been the worst part to me, but..." "Look... Just-- Don't, all right, don't be upset about it? I--" He takes a deep breath. "In the army, I-- When I was in the army, I mean, blokes got real lonely, and we were all of us young then, wasn't anyone who could go that long without somebody, that age, and... I mean, we did things for each other sometimes. I like girls, but I've... Yours isn't the first, y'know, other person's... one of those that I-- So don't think I've got a problem with what you've got, because, I mean, it's yours at least, and I'd rather be with you, and-- I mean--" I throw my arms around him. It seems like the best way to keep him from trying to explain things he has no words for, and it isn't as though I don't have experience with people I was not compatible with... "You don't mind a girl with the wrong equipment?" I offer. "It's your equipment. That's enough for me, I guess. You... you smile at me and you look at me and you touch me like a woman, and you're soft and you're sweet for me, and you let me read you poems, and I reckon that means more to me than the rest. Sowed my wild oats, Gin, I just want something real. The parts don't matter so much." "You are a strange man..." I smile. "For the first time, I feel like I am a lucky woman." He grins at me, and it is terribly earnest and begging to be kissed. "I just want us to be happy." He settles down with his arms around me. "If... if you're not happy with what you've got, I mean... Dunno. Have you ever thought about, y'know, I mean... going to Sweden or wherever and having stuff done?" I shake my head. "Denmark. Anyway, a couple of years ago they were doing it in America, and it still doesn't matter. I can't." "As long as you're happy." "It has nothing to do with happiness. Maybe it would help, maybe with you it wouldn't even matter--" "It doesn't have to." He promises. "I can't have surgery. They would put me under... it terrifies me. There is nothing worse, I-- There have been nights I have lain awake because even sleep was horrifying to me. Being unconscious, I... I just couldn't. No surgeries, not for me. I don't like to be unaware of the world around me." "You're afraid to sleep?" "Only sometimes. In new places. The first couple of nights in a new base I don't." "It sounds awful." "It is. It is the worst fear to have, I think. But I need to know what is happening around me. I couldn't... I couldn't be put under, not even for this." He strokes my hair and holds me close. "Well, we'll figure something out, then. I want you to have fun--" "I did. Really. It's just a little awkward after, the first time with someone." He nods. "All right. Long as you're happy, then. If you're happy, I'm happy, and we'll figure the rest out as we go. You've bloody bewitched me, I want you to know that." I settle into him with a smile. A shame I can't stay very much longer... but for a little while yet, I'll take what I can. The feeling is more than mutual.
Ch.XXVII- SNIPER ---/-/--- I'm not sorry, exactly, not to have much room in bed for spreading out. Not with her tucked up in my arms, and except for the line of the old scar, the back of her shoulder is soft and smooth, easy to nuzzle against in that sort of sleepy after-sex place. "Guess I'm no good at pillow talk." I admit. Not that I've been a quiet lump the whole time, but half the time my mouth's been open I've been tripping over my tongue putting my foot there, feels like. "As long as you are talking to me, I don't mind." Her arm drapes over mine, around her waist. "You are fine." "Anything else I can do for you, before you go?" "Promise to meet me again?" "Darl, wild horses couldn't keep me. In fact, if you see any wild horses, you tell 'em." She laughs, and there's a warmth to it, gentle... She rolls over in my arms, and I lose my spot on her shoulder, which is maybe for the best because I'm sure I'd give her beard burn if she let me. "Saturday afternoon, at the hotel, the same? And if I cannot get the same room, I'll find you before I change and let you know which door to knock on. This time I will bring a book, and you can rest and I can read. And I will show you a couple of things." "Oh, I definitely like it when you show me a couple things." I snake a hand down to give her arse a quick squeeze. And sure, all right, guess it's not as round or as soft as most girls, but the skin's soft even if it's all firm muscle beneath, and I've got no problems with muscle anyway. Besides, nice as every curve on a woman is and much as I wouldn't begrudge any man his preference, I'm a leg man first and foremost. If I had to choose, I mean, I think I'd choose legs. There's no wrong choice, but legs... Well, legs she's got. Long and lean and with a nice bit of shape... maybe other men wouldn't be able to handle her like she is, not the flatter chest and arse and not certain other bits, but you show any man on earth just a picture of those legs, in her stockings and all, if he says they're not the most perfect specimen, he's out of his bloody mind. I slide my hand down her thigh. The hair there's sparse, and silky, and I can feel about where she must start and stop shaving, where it becomes just smooth, and I am more than happy to feel her up a while longer, to get my nose back in the curve of her neck where it's almost all sweat and no perfume now but sometimes I catch the tiniest bit of lavender in all the sex and musk. "So soft..." I hook the back of her knee with my hand and draw her flush to me, roll her to her back. "Fuck, if I was a younger man... But I probably shouldn't keep you long enough for another go, it'll be late and you've got to get... aw, can't help thinking about it, though. Saturday, Saturday I'll love you up all over again." I love the little gasp I get, the softest little half a moan and the hand that snakes around the back of my neck. "Saturday I will keep you through to Sunday, if you like." She promises, sliding out from under me and out of my bed, and giving me one last long kiss as she does. I watch her dress, tucking herself back into her underthings first, fixing everything nice and neat and everything about her just the most precisely dainty... After that, she puts the Spy back on over, and even though I know the uniform is cut to fit her body, there's a moment where it all seems grossly oversized, and maybe that's just me seeing it for the costume it is. A moment later, every article fits her like a glove, but the very last mask, the one that's in the way she holds herself, doesn't come back up yet. I am grateful for that. Even with the suit and gloves and balaclava, she moves like herself a while yet as she packs up the things she'd brought with dinner. When she picks up the robe, I reach a hand out towards her. "Leave that? I-- I mean... if you've got something else in your room you can wear instead... I thought-- If I hang it up in my closet, you won't have to carry it back and forth all the time, but whenever you wanted to visit me out here during the week, you'd have something to put on." She reaches out, smiling and taking my hand. "I would like that. I have other things, I can leave this here... I would like that." I tug her in a step so that I can kiss her hand, even through the glove. Even through the glove, she reacts to it, with a soft smile, with lowered eyelashes. She finds an empty hanger in my closet. Not much room there, but then, I don't own that much to clutter it up. And no one from the team's ever out here to poke around, so it'll be safe there. And I like it, just seeing it for a moment hung up next to my clean shirts, knowing it's hers and knowing she can be at home here. I mean, I want her to be at home here. Hell... I'll have to make the place nicer, if I'm gonna have a lady over more often. I mean, I cleaned up knowing she'd be coming over tonight, but I need to make the place nice. Dishes that match and don't have big chips in them, for starters, maybe a new dishtowel, the old one's kind of ratty... New curtains, I could use new curtains-- just something nice on the inside of the thick ones, at least, because those are good for keeping prying eyes from seeing in, but they're ugly as sin and I just never cared. Well, come to think of it, wouldn't know how to buy nice ones. I'll just start with a couple sets of new dishes, then. Start small. "Sleep well, mon amour." She squeezes my hand and slips away. "You too." I whisper after her, before she disappears. New dishes, and some coasters and a dishtowel that aren't just practical beer adverts, and I won't worry about curtains for now. And Saturday... And Saturday.
It's really not fair how happy this fic makes me.
I feel all fuzzy when I read this. Cannot wait for Saturday.
Ch.XXVIII- SPY ---/-/--- This time, I prepare a small 'picnic' supper ahead of time. I get the same room, and arrive with enough time to get ready before there's a knock at the door. The man, I expected. The chocolates are a surprise. I usher him in with a hand on his arm, and once the door is locked and bolted, the box of chocolates is tossed to the bed and his hands are on my waist. And considering how we spent Tuesday night, the kiss is surprisingly chaste. Sweet. "It's nice to see you." I sigh, leaning against him. "Me? Ah, nah, you're the sight for sore eyes, luv." I stand back, feeling my face heat, but happy to give him a look at me even if I can't quite believe it. Me a sight for sore eyes... but I know a lie when I hear one. The skirt of my dress is... shorter than I like, but then, I am taller than the woman it was made for, and I could only do so much with it. It's a simple sheath dress, the sort that was all the rage a couple of years back, and the tailoring at the neckline and bust and the peplum at the hips give the illusion of a little more shape than I could honestly claim. I let the hem down as much as I reasonably could, but it still hits rather high above the knee, and of course I had to remove a large part of the back so that it wouldn't be too tight across my shoulders, but when I bought it, I had an apartment and a sewing machine and the time to use both, before I put most of my things in storage to join BLU and let the lease on the apartment go. I could afford to buy the whole building now, but that's not where I'm going, when this job is up. "Green's your colour." He offers, his hand skating up the bare skin of my back. "I mean, not that blue's not your colour, reckon it brings out your eyes best, but... I mean, probably I'd think anything was your colour." "Thank you." "Does make me wonder how you'd look in red." He murmurs. There's a glint of mischief in it, a note of something almost dirty, and I play with one of his shirt buttons and smile. "Well, maybe you'll find out." We move to sit on the bed, his hand resting on my knee, and I don't mind the length of the dress so much, with that... I'd only packed a couple, once I had the contract. I'd been in such a flurry I barely paid any attention, or I might never have brought it, but then, I put so much work into making it fit me comfortably, and aside from how self-conscious the length of it always made me feel, it is flattering... "Have you had lunch? I have some things." I cozy up to him, and point out the bottle of wine sitting in the ice bucket, and the bag from the supermarket beside it. There's a small cooler on the floor, sitting next to the dresser, and he looks over the spread, such as it is, without removing his hand from my leg. "I could eat." He nods, giving my knee one last squeeze before standing and offering me his hand. "If you want to get us set for food, I'll get that bottle open. Bet you picked a better wine than I did..." "For this, but I don't think the quality is any better, really. We both got the best Teufort has to offer." I'd bought paper plates and napkins, since we've no takeaway containers to eat from, and I tear the loaf of fresh bread into large hunks and get the cheese and summer sausage from the cooler. It's no picnic by the Seine, a hotel room in Teufort, but the company more than makes up for the fact. Berries would have been nice, but the produce section had little to begin with, and the only decent fruit to be found was bags full of little green apples. Well, I have my knife, it's not exactly trouble to cut a couple into slices, to give the blade a quick clean-off with a handkerchief before cutting slices from the sausage. "This looks real nice." He hands me the water glass of white wine as I finish. "Very picnic." "Mm. Just imagine we've some scenery." I laugh, shaking my head. "Oh? Where are we, then?" He stretches out across his side of the bed and picks up an apple slice, grinning over it at me. "There--" I point across from the foot of the bed, past the plain beige wall. "Imagine a river. And grass, soft and green, all around our blanket. And here--" I reach back to touch the headboard. "Here is a good shade tree. Here and there, there are other parties, and up a hill, there is a street, and bicyclists. And there are birds, little songbirds. And there are barely any clouds in the sky, but under a tree, it is not too hot." "Mmm... well, lucky to be out on a day like that, and with a girl who packs a good picnic lunch." I blush all over again, but it doesn't take very long before we are both relaxing, pointing out imaginary ducks and rowboats on the river and sharing sips of wine. Full, I scoot over to lean against the headboard, picking up my book from the nightstand, and he moves in close, to rest his head on the pillow, so near to my hip, and to wrap his hand back around my knee. "I think that's cheating." I cough. "There are no pillows on a picnic." "Oh. So there aren't." He grins, rolling over and placing his head on my lap. "There. Wouldn't want you to think I was the cheating type." "No." I stroke his forehead. "Indeed not." His eyes fall closed, his smile gentle in anticipation, and I take a moment to study the lines of his face in repose. "My forehead against the glass like the watchman of grief, Sky whose night I have surpassed, Plains so small in my open hands, In their double horizon inert indifferent, My forehead against the glass like the watchman of grief, I look for you beyond all expectation, Beyond even myself, And no longer know loving you so, Which of us two is absent." "Sad." His hand comes up, the back of his knuckles brush my stomach, just lightly. "Paul Eluard." I flip the page, and reach back to touch his cheek. "They aren't all." "Give me one that's not." "The arc of your eyes makes the rounds of my heart, A circuit of dance and gentleness, Halo of time, cradle nocturnal and sure, And if I no longer know all I have lived, It is because your eyes have not always seen me." There are two stanzas more, but I choke on the end of the first, and his eyes open, his hand finding mine and squeezing it. "Hey, hey... thought this one wasn't sad." "It is not. It is just true." He breathes in deep and out slow, and kisses the back of my hand warmly. The pages flip themselves, without my hand keeping them in place, to Nous Avons Etonne, but I set the book aside when his lips continue on. "I was going to show you things." I murmur. "Oh, that you were..." He turns over, to press his forehead to my belly, to wrap his arm around my waist. "I believe you had a couple things to show me."
Ch.XXIX- SNIPER ---/-/--- She wriggles her way out of my arms with a throaty giggle, her fingers in my hair. It is a very nice dress, for wriggling-- for that matter, a very nice dress for going through her things in, the bags all on the floor and me with a view of her from behind when she bends over them. I can just barely see the bands of her stockings in the back, when she does, before she can straighten up and tug her skirt back down, and she looks at me like she knows exactly where my eyes have been, but I can't really make myself look sorry for it. She has a scarf in one hand, a big silk square of emerald green with a navy pattern on it. In the other hand she's got a camera, which she hands me. "What's this?" "Up." She gives my shoulder a little push, and takes my place on the bed when I move, knotting the scarf under her chin and arranging herself just so. "You're taking a picture. I will develop it, in my closet, and then I will send it to you in a letter-- I know, the letter is hardly necessary now, but... I will send it in one anyway. And you'll have one, that way. Just..." She shrugs, her smile unsure. Mine's anything but. I am strictly point-and-shoot, with a camera... don't know a thing about artistry. I know about lenses, a bit, about the technical specs-- at least, on my own-- but not about the things that make a picture art. I try, with this, snapping pictures of her from different angles, standing on the end of the bed to shoot her from above and then kneeling by the foot to see her from below. I get her smiling gamely, and blushing and laughing nervously into her hand. I get the miles of her legs, folded demurely to the side. "Just keep them safe." She takes the camera back, when I guess she decides I've exhausted the possibilities. "Don't worry. Wouldn't go around showing 'em off to the team." I promise. "I know you wouldn't." She shakes her head, and I can see the light in her eyes dimming a little and hate it. "Not like your team can know-- Not that they would recognize me, perhaps, just-- They would see--" I crawl over the bed to wrap an arm around her waist. "I mean, imagine it! I pull out a picture and start waving it around, and the next thing you know, someone'll steal it. 'That Sniper's a lucky rotten bastard', they'll all say, 'look at the legs on her', and the last thing I want's the team passing around pictures of my girl's legs." She smiles again. Hesitant, but honest. "Do you really have a picture of just my legs?" "Well... I mean..." I shrug. "I took a lot of pictures! Probably a few. I like your legs." "Do you really think they would be a photograph worth stealing?" Her smile goes a little slyer. "Considering what I'd be doing with a picture of your legs, darl?" "Well... as glad as I am to have all of my pictures kept secret, it is nice to think they are worth bragging about." "I think all of you is." I nuzzle against her neck. "I do mean for you to send me one with your face in it. But I do like your legs..." She looks the camera over, then glances back up at me. "There are a couple more shots left before I change the film... How would you like to spend them?" That sounds a lot like carte blanche, and I swallow. "My choice?" She nods. I slide a hand up her thigh, pushing her dress up higher, kissing her neck as I do. "Mm... Ginny... let me?" "Of course." A little more kissing, and she relinquishes the camera again, and stays sprawled on the bed when I leave her, her legs on display. I shoot them from the head of the bed, zooming past her waist, to the rucked-up skirt and the garters and the lace bands of the stockings... down to her feet, and there's something about the turn of her ankle, something posed and coy and perfect. I lean over, running a hand lightly along one leg, dropping a kiss to her knee, and her hand moves to squeeze my thigh as I do. "I've got one shot left." I murmur, lips still half-pressed to her knee, to the cool, silky stocking and the sweet, warm skin beneath. "Oh?" "Lift your hips?" She does, and I pull the dress up again. It's a garter belt, not the little snap-on bits of elastic she'd kept her stockings up with last time, but a real honest garter belt, black lace... the knickers are high-waisted, up past where I've lifted her dress to, the sort you see on pin-up girls covering just enough to really, really tease you, and... And hell, I've given her a hand-job and I still look at her in them and see the same silhouette I've seen on any other girl in a pair of silky knickers. A little less in terms of hips and arse, but the same smooth lines at the front, and down between her legs. I move down to the end of the bed, adjusting those legs as I go, and kneeling over her to take the shot. I'm sure I could spend every lonely night of the rest of my life with just this picture from her waist down, but I get all of her anyway, for the way she looks at me when I take it. The want in her eyes isn't something put-on for the camera, it's too full of surprise to be anything but honest reaction-- and I mean, I'm sure most days she could fool me, being other people is her bread and butter, but this... this I think has to be real. The soft 'o' of her mouth, the way her hand's gone to her collarbone, the little shift of her hips from where I'd left them that doesn't spoil my shot at all... I give her the camera, and she pulls me into a kiss. "I have another roll." She whispers, and when that leaves me dumbstruck, she adds onto it. "Of film. Get it for me?" She points to her handbag, I all but trip over my own feet to get it. I don't get the camera back, once she's changed it. Well, turnabout's fair play and all, and I kind of like thinking she wants to keep my picture as well. I really like to think she might want one for more than pure sentiment, when she ruffles my hair and unbuttons my shirt before snapping another. She slips out of the dress, and there's... a girdle, or a corset, or something, that pushes her chest up, makes the skin into that approximation of cleavage. It doesn't seem to change her shape beyond that, and I don't think it needs to, but it's soft and lacy, and I do appreciate that... it goes with the rest, and it doesn't have to change her shape any to be nice, as underthings go. She hasn't used up the roll, and she lets me take a picture of her as she is, with the dress and scarf gone, in just her underthings. Takes the camera back to snap a few more as I get undressed, including one of me just about falling over as I wrestle with my trousers, and I can't imagine when undressing became so difficult, always used to be able to take my trousers off before. After she sets the camera aside for good, she guides my hands back to her. "I am yours." "Well, good. I'm yours." My thumb rubs at the little strip of pale skin between the panties and the top. After a moment of contemplation, I slide my hand down over the front of the knickers, 'til I can feel heat through the fabric of them, can feel a sort of firmness. I unhook the garter belt and slide the knickers down, and... And I'm not really sure what to call it. Dunno if there's a word she likes, something better than 'cock' for what she has. It's hard, or partway there, springing free when I get the panties off, and I hook the stockings right back to the garter belt once those are gone. The hotel bed affords me room to move around and more light than my bunk gets, an actual view of her instead of blind feeling around, and even having fooled around with a couple men as well as women, she is something different. "Does it hurt? I mean, the whole... process, down there, is it--?" "No. Not at all. Anyway... for work, I usually don't, not so much." The skin is loose, where I imagine her balls ought to have been-- again, probably she wouldn't call them that, what on earth does a woman call everything when she's got the wrong parts for it? I can settle for not calling any of it anything. Unless she ever decides to stop me and give me a vocabulary lesson, I can settle for not having words for it all. "D'you have condoms? Jeeze, that's not anything to ask a lady, is it? I've never sucked one of these off before, didn't think it would be very romantic if you came and it went down the wrong pipe. Choking, not attractive." "You... You want to, for me?" I nod. "You like it, yeah?" "It feels good." She shrugs, and there's a little discomfort and a little glee, all balled up together. "I... I just... You know, the men I've been with before... It feels good, it's just... They all liked doing that, with men, and you..." "Like doing it with women. Er, well, reckon I will." I nuzzle at the hair, at the base of it, warm and firm, with soft skin... the dark pink flush of it. It's weird, how I can see something so... I mean, so inarguably male as feminine just it being hers, but it's the pinkness and the softness that stand out to me with it. And I mean, probably it helps that hers is smaller, maybe it'd be weird if she was bigger than me, but it's fine, and if I can get the hang of this, if we can do it regular, I wouldn't always need the condom. She has one, has to shove it in my face to get my attention as I'm carried away nuzzling a path up to the edge of the garter belt and back down, and I make sure to taste her skin while I'm getting it opened. I don't want her thinking I wouldn't like the taste or the smell of her, I like the smell of her just fine. I mean, maybe she wouldn't worry, I haven't been shy about tasting her, either. But I don't want her worrying. It's a little awkward at first, the matter of the first blowjob, and I'm not wild about the taste of the condom, but it's all worth it for her hands in my hair and the soft gasps and whimpers, and just the knowing I'm pleasing her. After, I get rid of the condom, and press a kiss to the spot just below the lacy edge of the garter belt. Just hanging there soft, there's nothing about her body that seems remotely threatening. No feeling that sucking her off a moment before ought to say anything about me that I don't want said. It's more than I've done for any bloke I've ever fooled around with, but Genevieve, Ginny, she's not a bloke. And I've got nothing but pride for being able to satisfy a woman any way a woman can be satisfied. I sit up, and look down at her, the soft smile she aims my way, and one pale little hand curled over her heart. "You're cute, you know that?" I pick her hand up and give it a squeeze. She squeezes back. "I didn't. Thank you." "Well, you are." "You will let me return the favor?" She tugs my hand to her lips, nibbles at my thumb just a little and the swipe of her tongue... well, that'd be enough to set me on fire under any circumstance. "Yeah." I nod. "I'll let you do any little thing you like."
I am still waiting for this fic. please don't be over.
Definitely not over-- just on a bit of a Christmas hiatus, sorry! ---/-/--- Ch.XXX- SPY ---/-/--- After a shower, where everything is free to... descend, during the whole bathing process, we fall back into bed together, and I urge him to a spot down at the foot of the bed, bringing my knees up and apart. "If you were ever curious, this is how I do it." I take a deep breath and reach down, and I haven't had to really take things slowly in a long time, I am an old hand at this, but for him, I do. He watches, eyes wide and jaw slack. I don't know whether to be flattered or merely self-conscious, but he watches, as I perform the little sleight of hand required, the little juggling sliding push, and then the balls at least are up inside, and the sac only hangs there like a sad deflated balloon for a moment, before it's spread softly to the sides of the last tucked-back bit of me, a mock vulva. I can feel the first twitch of interest, the price to pay for slowing down the process. Play with it long enough and it never wants to behave... "And you say it doesn't hurt?" He asks, his fingertips just barely at my thigh. "Doing that?" "No. The only danger is in taking too long, it can be... stimulating, if you haven't just taken care of things. Hand me my panties, cher?" He does, though he does it slowly. It is a relief to slide back into them, the tightness offers a level of support, something to keep me in place until the slight thrum of arousal is a mere memory. His hands slide over the smooth fabric, once they're on, up my hips to my waist. My hair is damp on the pillow, and there are drops of water still clinging to the dark, crisp curls spread across his chest, when he follows me down to the mattress, his body naked over mine, his smile soft. I am hardly sure which is more intimate, between the closeness of our bodies and the closeness of our smiles... "This was fun. This, the pictures and everything." He nuzzles my cheek, his lips brush my skin, I wrap myself around him feeling it is only natural, only natural to surround him any way that I can. "And you'll send me some?" "I will." He reaches, with one long arm, to rummage around the rest of my discarded things for garter belt and stockings. "Did you want these?" "I don't normally sleep in them." I arch an eyebrow, and he blushes. "Early for sleep, though, isn't it?" "Fetishist." I tease, and point my toe to the ceiling. "But I will wear them, if you like them. And we can have a little something more to eat." He rolls the first stocking onto my leg, slow and reverent, before fumbling me into the garter belt to hook it into place. His hands skim back down my stockinged leg, he folds them together around my ankle. It is wonderful, so wonderful-- not just to be touched, not just to be looked at with longing, but to be held so neatly, to have any part of me encased in those hands, with the long, thick fingers and the broad palm, and more dexterity than hands so large could be expected to have, my hands are much smaller and dexterity is their life's work. They would be fine hands on their own merit, any woman should think so. Rough skin and careful gentleness, the skill... the size and the warmth of them! The way they work so beautifully and the way they show the marks of a life of work, and the way they treat a girl, with the same soft, practiced, loving ease they treat a rifle with. On me, though... I am transformed. All the changes I have been barred from making-- worse, the ones I would never have been able to make!-- those hands make for me, touching me instead of merely touching my body. And... it is nice, to be worshiped. The second stocking is pulled on, and he rubs his cheek against my knee, draping my leg up over his shoulder, making love to it, his lips grazing my inner thigh. I have never had a part of my body I could love unconditionally, before this. Not since childhood, when there was no reason to think about my body at all. When I grew, when my skeleton solidified itself into the framework of a man, when I found myself with too much shoulder, too much nose, too little flesh, this creature of angles... I had no strong quarrel with my legs, not compared to the rest of me. My calves at least have a little muscle-- it may not be the curves I most wanted, but still, there is some curve to a calf-- and if they are not delicate, exactly, if they are not feminine, they are at least slender legs... it is something. I feel rather good about my legs now, with the way he appreciates them. I only get to shave them properly on the weekend... on a base full of men, there is no good way to do the job, but I had enough time before he arrived to take care of that before dressing. It's... nice. Almost a ritual, with the way I so rarely have the luxury. A secret, out of necessity, but secrets are fine things to have for a spy, anyway. And now, someone who some secrets can be shared with, in little ways. Someone to touch me, and kiss me, and smile. Someone to wake me up to loving myself. There are things I could do, after the war, that would improve the life I have, even if there are still things I could never go through with. I always hoped... I always hoped, when I retired with enough money, I could live my own life. I read about hormone therapy, and only this year about electrolysis-- for anyone! No longer a 'secret of the Hollywood starlets', apparently, but something I could have done, in places all over the world!-- and I thought, once I am free to, I will do these things, and I'll love myself then. It is something of a revelation, this idea that I need not wait to love myself. "Someday I could take you away from all this." He sighs, his lips still half-pressed to my thigh, his mouth stretched open to one side. "Even just for a little bit. Haven't really got any time off, except for the weekends, and that's no time to get someplace nice, but my contract's up come next August. I could whisk you off anyplace then. A weekend at some chalet in the mountains, or a high-rise hotel somewhere where you can't sleep for all the lights outside your window, or anything." "I am free in the spring. Suppose... suppose that we write, when that happens." I relax, my leg slipping from his shoulder, my hands reaching to beckon him up to my arms. "And then when you are free as well, next August, we will go somewhere together." "All right. Well, plenty of time 'til spring." He nudges his way up my chest with little kisses, rolling us onto our sides as he scoots up to claim a pillow for himself. "So until then, weekend 'picnics' right here?" "I would like that. And there is always your van. Any time that it is my night to cook, I might drop by with a little something." "Like that." He nods. "Like that." He pulls himself away, before we can grow too cozy, too sleepy, and brings leftovers back to bed, to feed me bites, and to be fed. "Thank you. For making me feel more comfortable in my own skin." I sigh, tracing his lower lip with one finger. "It's nice skin." He shrugs. "I need that sometimes." "Yeah, well... reckon we all do, sometimes."
I feel like I'm repeating myself but ... I really did enjoy this last chapters.
Thank you! Well, I fly home tomorrow, and my schedule will get much more regular once I'm settled back in. ---/-/--- Ch. XXXI- SNIPER ---/-/--- [/i]again, for the weekend. I always did hate pictures of myself, before. I like the ones you took. All that night together, I felt so lovely, with the way you gazed at me. I thought I would feel so silly, and I thought it would be so painful, to develop the film and to have to look at myself, and instead I think of you and everything is fine and beautiful. I cannot wait to be with you again. Write me back? I know you hardly need to now, but do? Big kisses, Genevieve (for you, 'Ginny') [/i] My fingers shake a little, drawing the photos out of the envelope, wondering which she'd picked. There's the one, of just her legs, long and pale with her skirt bunched up at the top and her garters showing. Under them, the sheets are rucked up from rolling around in bed with our picnic, there's a knowing coyness in the way one knee turns in to rest over the other... The other picture she'd sent, her sitting at the head of the bed with her skirt mostly in-place, and those legs folded to the side all demure, and she's hiding a soft little smile-- an embarrassed laugh?-- in her hand. I'd caught her, between trying to smile for the camera and looking back to it sidelong, in the moment where she'd been in her own world, flustered and glad and girlish. As much as I appreciate the legs alone, this one... this one would probably be my favourite, for how unguarded she is in it. Snapped between careful poses, a moment of her as she is in secret. I mean, reckon they're all that. She only ever is in secret. But this... I tack the photos up over my pillow, hidden behind an old picture postcard of home. Where I can take them out to look over in private, and thrill in the dirty secret of having them up, technically having them right up on my wall. Still alone and in bed, I wriggle out of my trousers, and out of my shorts, and lying back, I experiment. I'd seen how she'd done it, tucking everything into place, and... I mean, I suppose I don't need to, to understand her well as any man can understand a woman, but I want to know a little more what she goes through. It's weird, takes a little feeling around to get done, and she had a point, playing the balls into place tends to get the old fella's attention. Well, that part's not important-- I mean, that's the part everyone does once when he's twelve or so and hasn't seen the real thing since birth and won't again another four or five years yet. You tuck it back between your thighs and look in the long mirror on the bathroom door and panic when your dad or your mum knocks to ask what's taking you so long. General you, of course, everyone... I mean, everyone, yeah? Everyone does it just the once, and more than a few more than just the once. It's the bollocks bit I had no idea about, before she showed me, the thing I was curious about. Don't think I'd do it again or anything, don't think I need to, but at least playing around a bit's enough to satisfy me it doesn't hurt or anything. It goes easy enough-- awkward, but easy-- to make me think it can't be doing her any damage, at least. I reach back for the photos, taking myself in hand. Not fair to myself, after all, getting hard and leaving it standing. I remember the feel of those legs through her stockings, under my hands, my cheek, my lips. The silkiness, and the bones in her knee, and the firm curve of her calf fitting into my hand... I imagine another visit like the last, another afternoon in her hotel bed, with her stockings and her garters and her skirt pushed up like that. Imagine pushing it up and up, over her arse, that tight, muscled little handful... up to reveal no knickers under the garter belt, not like this last weekend. That stops me, just for a moment. A little mental 'and then what, smart guy?' And then the skin, the loose skin that I now understand a little better-- how is it so soft and hairless? She can't shave there, can she?-- Then that, under my lips, my tongue. Hot, velvet skin, just like teasing a girl open the first time, it wouldn't feel so different from that, only too dry. I mean, eventually she'd get hard and it would be... it would be less like going down on other girls. In my imagination, though, I can give myself time... can picture being able to hold her cock down at least, long enough to nibble my fill at the skin to either side, to run my tongue along and under. Will I really miss going down-- I mean, going down on, well... I mean, all the usual bits? Maybe. I like it. But I kind of liked sucking her off, too. It's not the same, but she looked at me like I hung the damn moon for it, and that... She'd look at me like that, with her fingers in my hair. And I'd tell her, I'd tell her how bad I want her, how keen I've been for so long, to have my head down between those thighs, and... Yeah. Yeah, and she'd gasp and moan, soft, shuddery moans, breathy. Throaty. Her fingers in my hair and her dress all mussed and her legs in those silky stockings over my shoulders... Her arse? I mean, that's... Would she? I've never actually asked a girl. Did it once, her idea then, after I'd torn the damn condom fumbling to get the packet open with my teeth, so I reckon I know some girls will. And that's the option, isn't it? For anything more than rubbing off against her and trading blowjobs. And rubbing off against her was fun, and I'd never say no to getting sucked off, and sucking her off was a little fun, too, but it's not the same as eating a girl out, sucking her off... Would that be the arse, too? Well, no harm in asking her. Wouldn't be the same, no, but next time I could ask her, what else does she like. My thoughts have wandered a little too far from the sexy pictures, into abstract questions about the future, erection flagging a little, but it's easy enough to get myself back on track. She'd ask me to fuck her-- she wouldn't say 'fuck', not when she asks, yeah, no, she'd say 'make love', but there'd be an inflection to it, be a little suggestion and a bottle of oil and a condom, and her legs opening for me, still thrown up over my shoulders. Of course, I'd say, of course I would. She'd say 'fuck' then. With me in her, she'd say 'fuck', or whatever 'fuck' is in French. With her fingers in my hair and little sounds she can't help making, and her throat slender and white and arched back under my lips, and I remember from the one time it was tight, and she'd be, she'd be wonderful. And I'd touch her, of course I'd touch her, anywhere she asked me to I would, and I'd get her off, and unzip her dress after, stains on the front from her and dripped down onto the back from me, and light her cigarette, and she'd cross her legs and she'd look at me, her hair sweaty and her throat marked up and both of us a mess, both of us... I wipe my hand on my shirt-- the shirt already done for, after all-- and put the picture back behind the postcard, before shrugging the shirt off and dropping it down off the bunk. I light my own cigarette, which is not half so satisfying as lighting hers, but on a Wednesday night, there you have it, yeah? Twisting around, I take the postcard down again, to press my lips briefly to the other photograph, the one of her sitting there in her dress, with that little shy laugh. "Goodnight, darling." I sigh, settling back down. "Won't be long." It'll seem that way, but it won't be long.
When did I develop a leg fetish? DAMN YOU AAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNE!! NOT AGAIN! I'm still trying to get past sex with gloves! But in all seriousness, I can't wait for more. I don't think it's possible to hate anything you write. I really don't.
This isn't the right place but I didn't know how else to ask: Anne have you ever written an amnesia fic? I've tried finding all the stories you have posted but has there been an amnesia-theme one?
why do i have a bad feeling about those photos? :(
>>101 Hahaha, my evil work is done! >>102 I don't think I have ever written an amnesia fic for TF2... which is weird, because I really, really, really love amnesia fics. >>103 Probably because usually that's the sort of thing that leads to horrible things happening. This time, though, I had not planned on the photos being found and leading to problems. If that's any consolation. I'm not so kind to them often... ---/-/--- Ch. XXXII- SPY ---/-/--- Dear Ginny, Thanks, for writing again, with the photographs. I had a lot of fun taking them, and I wouldn't mind getting the rest, maybe just one or two at a time, if there are more that developed all right, but I liked finding the ones you picked. I don't know how you did it, but you got my favourite one in there. I can picture the face you're making, and don't, I'm talking about the one with all of you. But it might be fair to say the leg one is my second favourite, so I guess you can make that face at me a little bit, I am just a red-blooded man, after all. I don't reckon I have to go into much detail about that. Enough to say I enjoyed getting them, and I enjoyed thinking about you, and I thought about you a lot. I fold the letter carefully and place it on the hotel dresser when I hear him knock-- I'd read it through twice, twice and a half. With the limitations faced, with my wardrobe, I'm wearing the dress I wore for our first date again. I've been wondering if I couldn't find something in town worth owning, something not too intimate, the kind of thing I could claim I was buying for some imaginary sister's birthday... but then, I doubt Teufort has that much to offer, and there's nowhere else within a day's drive of the dustbowl base to look around in. I have wine in the ice bucket, and bread and cheese again, and when I answer the door, he has a pink box from the bakery and two bags from the market. "I see I am in for a treat!" I laugh, taking the box and setting it on the dresser, beside the chilling wine. One of the two bags has picnic ware-- paper plates and plastic forks-- and cold chicken. The other he sets down, smiling merrily at me, and reaches into carefully. "Well, I hope it's all right, at least." He pulls out a little succulent in a terracotta pot, with thick teardrop-shaped leaves and bright yellow flowers. "You could keep in indoors, and it wouldn't draw much attention that way, and I know it's not a garden-- doesn't take much care even, just watering-- but it's... it's something." "It's wonderful." I sigh, taking it. "It's perfect." No, not a garden, but it is a plant, one I could have on my vanity to brighten the place, and not just a little potted cactus even, it flowers. "It's edible." He offers. "Er, not that I'd suggest it. I mean, that one's a bit small anyway, to go making a salad of. Seeds do a good seedcake, though, and the leaves'll treat snakebites in a pinch, or beestings." He blushes a little, and I take his arm and lean up to kiss his cheek. "I didn't mean to carry on--" "No, I am happy you did. I like that you know things. It makes you interesting, you know? A man after my own heart, as if you did not already own it." "I just wanted you to have something. Stuck out here wilting in the desert, I wanted you to have something." "Well. Now I do." I tug him to the bed, settle him there before giving the plant in its pot a place of honor on the dresser. I bring the wine back to the bed, and he gets pieces cut off of the chicken, and pieces of cheese sliced, bread torn into hunks and each hunk torn down into something that could be made into a sandwich. I find myself more and more living for the weekends, for the opportunity to be myself, not only by myself. It makes the slights of everyday life easier to take, to have the weekend to hold onto, or if we're lucky, a stolen weeknight, if not a whole one. It makes the bouts of self-loathing easier to put a stop to, to remember the way he has touched me and kissed me and looked at me. Between hearty bites, he paints me the picture, this time. Another river, wide and green and silty, drifting lazily past our place on a hill, and trees all up and down the banks, dripping with leaves. "Birds, of course. Perching in the clumps of reeds and looking for fish. Sun flashing on their feathers. And the bright glint of scales, little snakes and lizards going down to the water, for fish and for beetles. Closer you get to the water, the more it all hums with life, and we've got a blanket on a soft hummock to watch it all." "Very nice." I nod, settling up close to his side. "Custard slice?" He disengages, long enough to get the pink box, before winding up with his arm back around me. I have no idea what on earth that is... does one-- can one!-- slice custard? But there's a mille-feuille in the box, sized just about right for two, so that answers that question. We leave the paper plates out of the equation entirely, each of us digging into the box with our own plastic fork, the box balanced half on his thigh and half on mine and his arm always around my shoulders-- and encompassed by the length of his arm, by his big, warm hand, my shoulders do not seem so ungainly, really... He feeds me a bite, the custard dripping off the edge of the fork, and his thumb brushes it up from my lip. I catch his hand, licking it up and watching the way his eyes darken and his breath quickens. "Could I ask you something?" He mumbles the words out, quick and quiet. I nod, letting his hand go, letting it slip down to nudge the box further down our laps, fingers grazing my inner thigh and creeping higher. His face is red, and his mouth opens and snaps shut twice before he leans in to whisper in my ear.
I cannot tell you how delightfully cute your sniper is! Can't wait for the next installment!
My, my ... there no telling I much I'm loving this fic. ... there's this one thing bugging me a little ("bugging" being such a big word) ... but, any way, I'm just surprised that Scout, being the chatter box that he is, didn't go bother Sniper and ask about his date ... or anybody else for that matter, because there's no way Scout would keep that little bit of news for himself. ... that being said I'll return under my rock until the next instalment.
>>106 Ah yes... no, one cannot reasonably expect the Scout to keep his mouth shut-- but I haven't really focused on Sniper's interaction with the team in a while... it'll be a couple chapters from this one where Scout's big mouth does come into play. ---/-/--- Ch. XXXIII- SNIPER ---/-/--- "Oh-- no..." She blushes, draws back a tiny bit, but her hand comes up to my cheek and she smiles at me when my face falls. "Not tonight, but another time. I... That sort of thing takes some forethought on my part, cheri. You really wanted to?" I shrug, face hot-- must be blushing harder than she is. "Well... I've never before, but I thought... I mean, I'd like to, is what I think, if it'd be--" If it would be good for her, yes, absolutely I'd stick my tongue in her arse, and maybe I'd enjoy the hell out of doing it. I don't know how you say a thing like that, I barely managed to ask it-- or... offer it, maybe. "Next weekend." She tugs me down, kisses me, warm and slow with just a hint of teeth. "I'll make sure I'm ready... oh, but tonight... tonight... I am still yours tonight, of course." "Course..." I touch her, as much as I was sure I could, with that delicate dress again, covered in almost-weightless lace and silk you could read through. I feel dangerously clumsy faced with how fragile her frippery seems. It seems so easy to tear in a fit of eagerness. I pull away instead, to clear the remains of another picnic from the bed, and she undresses while I do. I turn around to find her kneeling on the bed in black hold-ups and lace-and-nylon knickers. "I thought it might go easier for you, if I wasn't struggling with a garter belt." Or worse, the ones that hook onto her knickers and can't do a thing once those are gone. I mean, I like the garters-- absolutely, do I like the garters!-- but the hold-ups... well, hold up. Might not slip down no matter what we do. I move to ease her down onto her back, one hand sliding up into her hair-- short, yes, but soft and silky, somehow everything about her has a way of making me think of silk-- and the other sliding down to her calf. "Well, there's other stuff I've been thinking about doing to you." I murmur, and she sighs under me and gets my shirt open, while I coax little sounds out of her nuzzling at her ear and throat. Free to nip at her knowing no one will ever see if I go past little pink hour-long marks and into weekend hickey territory. "I can't wait." I can't either, not hardly, but I let her finish getting my buttons undone before pulling off her. "You're gorgeous." It still comes out surprised, not like it ought to be a surprise every time, but she smiles up at me like she knows all about the grip she has on my heart, and she looks up at me like I'm her knight in shining armor, all at once-- all that, even with the way we started, I mean the way we started in the real world. Or the unreal world, reckon the letters were the real world where she's concerned, and not the war. And besides that, the half-smirk and half-wonderment of her smile which ought to be enough for any man to call a woman gorgeous, besides that there's the little violet-red mark at her throat and the way her hand rests over her heart and the just-so curve of slender, white fingers. Manicured, but not false or fussy, just neatly shaped with a little clear shine. Clean, a practical length... feminine, but the kind of feminine that wouldn't get completely destroyed working in a garden-- or disassembling and cleaning a handgun, which is what she gets to do more often. And her lashes, thick and dark around wide pupils. And her lips, parted, wet... And her breath, that quick little hitch I feel in my own chest when I look at her, coming right back to me in the birdlike rise and fall of hers. The skin and the muscle seem paper-thin and white over her breastbone, over her ribs, as though she's too dainty for her own skeleton-- not the kind of skinny that looks like she's starving, just... wrong-sized to herself. Awkward delicacy. Nothing, of course, like any woman I've been with before, but I've come to find a beauty in it. The high-waisted knickers... kneeling between her legs and looking down at her, it's so easy to just reach down, to nudge the elastic a little bit, past her navel, and there's a softness to her stomach, flat as it is, all but concave when she rests on her back, though when she stands it's not really... I tug them down more, and she lifts her hips to let me, down to where the brown curls just peek out. A teasing little touch, and she rolls her hips up again and I can only oblige by pulling the knickers further down. I lift her legs straight up, to get them the rest of the way off-- and, I admit, just for the chance to feel them up a little more, to kiss the back of one knee and make her squeal. She lets her legs fall open wide, when I let them go again, and I get down between, to hold her cock-- and I still haven't been able to ask if there's a word she likes better, how do you ask a thing like that? I just want to keep it in place a little longer, though I can feel it filling out a little more. The fantasy I'd been indulging in since I got her photos in the mail floods my brain, and it's so much better to have the real thing. My imagination's pretty good, but it's so much better to have the real thing... The skin, that would have been her balls and sort of isn't, that skin is soft... the texture of it's different, sure, but soft skin's soft skin when you come down to it, and the taste of her is clean musk, the scent of soap from her last shower overpowered now by arousal... I go over her with long, slow licks, like I've been imagining, before sucking a fold of skin in between my lips, and under my hand, she's firm and hot, can feel the pulse if I pay attention to it, but I can still hold her down, run my tongue along the topside of her cock as well. My other hand's stroking along her thigh, she's got her legs up over my shoulders and one hand in my hair, and the noises she makes trying to keep her voice down are beautiful, desperate and sweet... I let her spring free, frees my hand up for her other thigh. "Just warn me when you're close?" "Oui." Damn but somehow everything sounds sexier in french. Or maybe that's just what comes of being in bed with a french woman... I still wouldn't call myself skilled when it comes to blowjobs-- There wasn't a lot of that, when I was in the army. At least, I didn't see much of that. I would've, except it'd have been queer to offer. Funny the kind of rules we accepted, what was and wasn't 'queer', when we were all trading sexual favours with other men to begin with... Anyway, enthusiasm makes up for some inexperience, I hope, because I am definitely keen to please her. I like the scent of her and the taste of her skin, I like the way she's soft and hard at once and the way she loves having me. Feel like a million bucks the way she loves having me. I'm licking, not sucking, when she tugs at my hair-- and my hips buck into the mattress so hard I think I could wear a hole in it if she kept it up-- and says something I figure means 'close'. I wind up with most of it across my cheek, and I almost take some up the nose, but I get to taste her without worrying I'll choke on it. Different, from what I'm used to, but I couldn't say I didn't like it. Not more, not less, just different, and I'd lick up two, three times as much for the look she gives me when our eyes meet. Do it as many times a night as she could get it up. "Fantastique." She slides her leg against my shoulder, and I grind against the mattress a little more before I pull myself up and get my jeans and shorts off. "Oh, do let me get a look at you." I let her. What else could I do? Painfully hard, but I don't touch myself, don't ask her to rush it. Almost ready to come just the way she looks at me, and she pulls me down to lie on top of her, wipes my cheek with her hand and kisses the corner of my mouth, and lets me kiss her back even though the taste of her's still thick on my tongue. Might not have tried it, if I'd been thinking clearly, except she wriggles around and scoots up the bed and pushes me down into position until I'm not grinding against her groin or her hip, but her thigh and the silky top of the hold-up stocking. I'd be ashamed, what with the knowing smile she gives me and the sound that comes out of me, but it was her idea after all, and I've been with girls who'd indulge my fondness for their legs, sure, but never one who had more than one pair of nice stockings-- or if she did, she never spent more than one night on me, had a few of those-- and never, never one who indulged me with this. "Maybe I should have sent you one of these instead of a handkerchief." She whispers in my ear. "You like having something silky against your cock? How about wrapped around it?" I grunt and buck against her, and it's definitely undignified, sure, but it's good... the thought of being given any part of her trousseau and encouraged to wank off into it, that's... I mean, of course I come, of course I do. The idea she wants me to bring myself off thinking of her, the idea of her underthings at all, but the stockings, her legs... the hand still tight in my hair and her breath on my ear, of course I come. After... After, she's breathtaking, the stockings still held up, but one of them stained and sticky, her half-untucked and stretching and sighing... "Have I mentioned being in love with you?" I ask, reaching out to snare her thigh, to drag her back to me. "I am not sure." She smiles down at me and drapes herself across my chest. "You had best mention it now to make certain." "I'm so in love with you, darl." I run a hand up her back. "Good. Moi aussi, je t'aime... Je t'adore." I conk out for the night under her. When I wake up, we're both under a blanket, her hand over my heart and her pillow smushed up by my shoulder.
Huuurrrrryyyyy~ I need another update. This is fantastic.
Normally, since this chapter is so very, very, very short, I would want to post the next one as well, but unfortunately I've got next to no time tonight, so my apologies, but it feels like a quicker and littler bit of fic than usual tonight! ---/-/--- Ch. XXXIV- SPY ---/-/--- I mailed another letter, another couple of photographs. My own, of him, I keep tucked in my hidden scrapbook, I've made a ritual over the almost two weeks of having them, of looking over them every night. His smile, his blush, his hands, his chest, the crest of one hipbone over unbuttoned jeans sliding down... Triggering memories of the scent of his sweat and the sound of his voice. Reading poetry to each other, laughing, whispering sweet nothings... I don't go after him on the field, I think it's easier that way. Not to say I don't still go up to his nest, just for a brief peek at him. It's nice, seeing him at work, all focus and concentration and steady, steady hands. But it's too dangerous to drop my guard, to be myself with him when someone else could come upon us. And I really don't think I can bear going back to being someone else, it didn't work. It's his presence Thursday afternoon that stays me from taking out the Engineer's nest, though I lurk near enough by to take my shot at the sentry once he's gone. I didn't think I would be waiting long-- a quick stop at the dispenser and he would be going back up to his own spot. It's the Engineer who stops him, the damnable Texan in a chatty mood. "Meant to ask you how it was going." "... Going fine." "With your lady-friend, I mean. Scout told us a couple weeks past you were seeing someone, was gonna wait on you to say something about her, but..." "Dunno what you want me to say." He chuckles, nervous, hand rubbing at the back of his neck. "Well, you still seeing her?" "Yeah." "Serious?" "Yeah." He smiles. "Pretty serious. I-- I don't like saying too much to the guys... I mean, I'm not gonna go introducing the Scout to my girl, you know? I mean, he's a good kid and all, or he could be, but this isn't the kind of place you bring a girl home to, is it? And... Dunno. I wanted to keep it quiet-like." "Guess I can understand that. But just between you and me... she pretty?" My heart lodges itself in my throat. I'm not, and I know I'm not, and I suppose I expect him to lie, or at least to waffle on the point. I mean, no one tells their friends the girl they're seeing isn't pretty, after all. It's one thing for him to say I am gorgeous and mean it in bed, everything looks rosier in bed, but... "She has... the bluest eyes." He says, and there's a ghost of the smile he gives me when it's just us, that drifts off somewhere. "And the longest legs. And between those two, there's not much you could say about a lady, not if you wanted to be gentlemanly, but... well, I mean, that's enough, isn't it? And... You ever have a girl smile at you, and that's just it? Just... it?" "Reckon I know the kind of smile you're talking about." The Engineer laughs, nudging his hardhat back on his head and wiping at his forehead. I could run up and stab him anytime, of course, but it doesn't seem right to, when the two of them are talking together, and... and I have just been talked about so nicely. I am so rarely in less of a mood to kill a man than overhearing that has put me... at least, not during the work week. I still have my job to do, of course. I cannot discount every potential target for being a friend of my lover. But I can wait until he's not there to see it, I can do that much. The sentry first, and as always, it gives the Engineer the chance to take a swing or a shot at me-- a shot, this time, that almost misses me. My aim is truer, but when you're up against a man with a shotgun, aim is relative, and I limp away with my side torn up and bleeding. I don't make it to one of the first aid kits scattering the field, not before collapsing, but I come to with my hand on one and no idea how much time has passed. The sounds of the battle are... fairly consistent, and my ears are still ringing anyway. I can piece together the sequence of events-- a teammate might have called for the Medic, or they might have left me to die and respawn, depending. There's only one man who would have moved me to safety... I will have to thank him this weekend.
"...the damnable Texan in a chatty mood." You have no idea how you made my day, not only did I get to see Sniper interacting with his team (ok, one member of his team) but also I get to see Spy at work (agaist said member of the team) ... and how did you know that Engie's one of my favourite character? ...ok, it was only to see him die soon after he appeared, but hey, that's part of the game ... ... anyway, I felt really spoil by this chapter ... even if you think it's a bit short compare to your usual, there's no need to apologize. While I cannot talk for the others, I wasn't left with the impression that something was missing or that it was incomplete in any way. Captcha : Flattery ... how did they know ??
I check back every day multiple times a day in hopes that you'll have updated. I look forward to the next installment very much.
Annnnnd I thought that was an update. Whoever forgot to sage...I loathe thee.
Sorry, all! I've been down with the flu for a few days and haven't really been around... mostly I've been asleep. Appreciate the thoughtful comments, and my apologies for the unexpected wait! ---/-/--- Ch. XXXV- SNIPER ---/-/--- "You will at least do me the courtesy of making your lie amusing." I look up from my locker in the resupply room, to see the Spy lounging against the far wall. "You just respawn?" "I did. I was... distracted, by a rather interesting sight on the battlefield. Their soldier took me out." "Yeah? Didn't know there were any interesting sights on the battlefield anymore." "No. Neither did I. And then I saw you moving the BLU Spy to safety. Curious." "... Owed h-him one." I cough, trying to cover the near slip. "I've been out of it and he said if it wasn't going to be a good fight even, he'd leave me to their Sniper, and... That's all. Owed him one." "I see." He lights a cigarette, sucking on it a moment, eyes narrowed. "I see." "You're not gonna see it again." "Funny, how that is different from 'it's not going to happen again'." He wrinkles his nose. "You've seen what happens when you make friends with the enemy out here, bushman..." "We're not 'friends'." I say. That much is technically true enough, I even manage to chuckle at it. "Merely a friendly warning." He disappears, at that. I go through the rest of the day with my chest in a vise, thinking about what he must be imagining. He didn't believe me one bit when I said it was just a favour owed, and the next most innocent thing won't be innocent enough... It's a relief to get back to my camper at the end of the night, and a better one when she appears with a gentle knock. I've already got the curtains shut tight, and she shrugs out of her 'Spy' things and into her robe before saying anything, and before I can figure out what to say. Her arms come up around my neck, and I lean my cheek against the shiny, smooth fabric of her sleeve with a sigh. "Unwell, cher?" "Little bit, yeah. It's... complicated, that's all. I mean, we always knew life was gonna be, didn't we?" "I wanted to thank you, for earlier." She smiles, her hand moves to my cheek... I cover it with mine, frowning. "Don't thank me just yet." "Oh-- You weren't--" "Seen?" She bites her lip. "Was, yeah. Just by our Spy, and he came 'round to give me a warning. Do the whole cryptic-and-spooky thing a bit. Said I owed you one for taking it easy on me when I was off my game. He doesn't believe me, but then, if I told him the truth he wouldn't believe me, either. So there's that." "All right. No more helping each other. It will be fine, mon amour, I am only on the field a little longer..." She leans into me, and I let that calm me down some. It was a good point. Once BLU sent a new spy onto the field, things would go back to normal until I finished out my contract with RED, and we'd meet back up again, start a real life. I move to sit on the bench, grabbing my pillow for her. "Well. We're alone now. So if you wanted any help with anything, I could give it." I smile. She takes the seat next to me, fixing the pillow and sitting sideways, wedging herself into the corner and drawing up her knees, her stocking feet in my lap. I wrap a hand around one and give her a squeeze. "Nice, just having you here for a bit." "Mm." She leans past me to grab a book off the table, before settling back into her space and flipping it open. "I could ask you... for a little foot rub?" "Happy to, darl." She lets out a soft little sigh and picks out poems, reading to me as I work at her feet, trying to figure out where I'd want the most attention and relief after a long day on my own. Sure, the rhythm of the verse is interrupted with the occasional little moan that way, but I'm hardly a man to complain about such a thing, am I? "I should go, and we both should sleep." She says sadly, when her feet have been massaged about as thoroughly as feet can be, and her voice is a little scratchy from reading aloud so long. "This weekend we will meet again, mon amour, I will see you then." She stands, with another pleased sigh as she flexes her feet on the ground. "Better?" "Much." She kisses my cheek. "Sweet dreams." "Tell you what, I'll meet you there, too. Then they will be." "Oh, a charmer now, are you?" "You're the first woman to accuse me of that." I get another kiss, and return it with interest, and she dresses. It's not as nice as getting her undressed, but I still see little glimpses of lingerie and skin in between the robe coming off and the suit going on. If I dream of her, I don't remember it, but the Spy doesn't say anything to me at breakfast, and I make it through the day without doing anything else he deems suspicious. I think a lot about her upcoming retirement from the field. When I do the same, do I really plan to retire-retire? Does she? What would we do with ourselves all day? Well, I mean, in between the obvious. I guess starting that garden, of course there's that. Might even get her to come camping with me. I don't know about real retirement, but I might like a good, long holiday before I take any other jobs, at least. We can write to each other once she's got a real address, even when she sent the photos it was through the service, but once she jets off to Paris or whatnot, we wouldn't be doing that... Still, 'Dustbowl, Sniper, Care of RED', sure she could get the information to send letters through them, and nothing suspicious about me getting mail from a woman with a name, not once she's not with BLU any longer. And it won't be a long time, between her leaving them and me doing the same here. I don't even half feel like panicking by the time the day's out. Haven't noticed our own Spy looking at me funny, nor anybody else. The worst that happens is Scout asking me about a ride into town on the weekend and does my lady have a friend he could meet. Damn kid's an early riser, so there's no sneaking out before he's awake, but when Saturday morning rolls around, it's not such a great hardship to drive him out to his flat in Teufort. "So, about your girlfriend-- I'm thinking, she's gotta know someone who would want to go on a double date with alla this!" "Dunno. Haven't met any of her friends. Unless she's friends with the hotel staff." "You dog, Snipes, way to go! Wait-- we're talking about you getting laid, right?" "Well, a gentleman wouldn't say..." I shrug, smirking. "Yeah. A guy who throws his own piss at people, that's real 'a gentleman' of you. Look, just ask her, right? And--" "Mate, you're not meeting her." "Oh. I getcha. You don't want her running off with me. Okay, okay, I respect that." "Exactly." I roll my eyes and pull up in front of his building. "Girls around here still too... intimidated, to talk to you?" "... Yeah." "Ah, buck up, Sporto, you'll catch one." I chuckle, waving him off. I figure I ought to hit the grocery for... something. I don't expect to see her there, though I guess it shouldn't be that strange. I mean, she's shopped for our little hotel picnics, too, so... "Fancy seeing you here." I smile, keeping my tone casual. "Picking up wine? Got a hot date?" She returns the smile with one of her own, breaking through the mask of the Spy ever so briefly. "Oh, maybe I do." "Well. Interesting. So do I." I look at her basket and mentally tick things off my own list. Bread and wine taken care of, and bloody hell, for once they actually got strawberries out in the desert? Must be the season for them someplace, then... I grab cheese and a package of sliced turkey that's not yet beyond its expiration date-- though I've learned to check in this dump. With another glance at the berries in her basket, I get whipped cream. Might as well, yeah? We keep pace with each other through the tiny store, playing with the veneer of one-upmanship that's expected of us in public. "And what kind of woman would be seen with a filthy bushman like you?" She says, her smirk related more to the whipped cream I'd just grabbed than to the words. "Oh, she wouldn't be seen in public with me. Likes to trap me in bed all day." I wink. She snorts. "I would still put money on my date being better." "I'd take that bet." "I think you would lose." "I think I would win." The checkout girl is quivering when we both reach the line at the same time. There's a sign at her station about how all mercs must comport themselves in a civilized manner if they want service, but she's not about to call attention to it. I wave Ginny ahead. I figure it's my only chance to fall back and grab something that could be a surprise, and I pick up the least unappealing chocolates in the place, and a small bag of ice. With the ice, I can give her some time to get to the room and get set up, get changed, and I don't have to worry about the cheese and turkey going. Wonder how long it takes a lady to change... Well, the kind of change she's making, anyway. Surely not as long as comedians would have me believe, at least.
Oh, I smell trouble! And truly hope we will get it, too.
Ch.XXXVI- SPY ---/-/ We put off discussing serious things, things like my opposite number and his possible suspicions, until after a thoroughly enjoyable-- if messy-- picnic, and an enjoyably thorough shower. Lying in bed, naked save the drape of a damp towel, I am loathe to bring serious things up, but it is important. "What do you think?" I sigh. "Think he's an arse. But he didn't say anything else about it, and... hell, if we keep it a one-time thing, then it's a one time thing, isn't it?" "Bien sur. Will you, then?" "Just shoot you next time?" I nod, and he blows out a long breath, resting his chin on my arm. "You know I will. Course I will. Don't like it, but it's all we can do. Even if it doesn't feel right anymore." "I can do for you, the same. If I ever have to." I promise. If just the idea makes it more fair, more palatable. It is less likely-- I will never see him suffer through a scope, after all, and if I avoid the places I think I will see him... Still, I can promise. "I'll come up with something more if I have to." "I trust you to." He chuckles and shakes his head. "Well, maybe you shouldn't do that. Betting you're the quick thinker between us." "You are a smart man, mon amour." "Maybe. But not when it comes to lying. Still, I'll do what I can." "Do you still want what you asked for, last weekend?" I play with his hair, still a little wet, hoping to distract him. I know, I know, it is important, but I cannot stand to see the man frown so. He perks up at that, his hand trailing up my thigh, pushing the towel higher. I throw it off and roll onto my stomach, making myself comfortable and spreading my legs wide for him. He nuzzles at the nape of my neck, I feel his tongue there first, and his hands at my shoulders, a light massage and a series of lazy, wet kisses that trails down my spine, until I'm melted onto the bed, my legs as open for him as legs can get, the pit of my stomach tingling and warm. Finally, his hands are on my ass, calluses rough and attentions gentle, pressing... massaging... spreading... "You'll have to kick me in the ribs or something if I mess this up." He laughs, nervous, breath warm. "You'll be fine." "Just never done it before." His hands slip down to squeeze my upper thighs, just a moment, before spreading the cheeks of my ass apart for him. I don't know how much is physical and how much is mental, but it is an electric jolt through me at the first hesitant pass of his tongue. Of course at least some is physical. It's a sensitive spot, after all, and the tongue is strong and slick and supple as any part of the body gets. But then there is the thrill of taboo, and beyond that, the knowledge that he was the one to ask me for this, that he has considered the intimate taste of me to be a pleasure. It must be very different from what he's used to, with other women, but I don't let that thought spoil it for me, if it does not deter him. Not when he clutches at me and licks his way into me with little grunting moans, as though I really have done him a favor. I am moaning, myself, muffling them into my pillow as best I can, but he does set me afire, in the loveliest way, and I am hard against the mattress... He pulls away, dragging his tongue along my skin and sucking a love bite onto one cheek. "Good?" He pants. "Very." I sigh. "If I kept going, could you get off like this?" "... No. But I like it." "Oh. Thank God." He laughs, and crawls up to press his forehead to my shoulder. "'Cause my tongue'll cramp up if I keep at it much longer, and I didn't think you were close enough. You wanna roll over?" "Actually, there is a jar of Vaseline in the nightstand... if you want to fuck me. That, I could come... I wanted to be ready, if you asked. I would like it, very much." "Roll over." He whispers, though he moves to get it. I do, and let him drape my legs up over his shoulders. Which I expect is half the point for him, the way he turns his head to kiss the back of my knee, in a manner so indecent I might blush, if he hadn't just had his tongue up my ass. I watch him slick his cock up instead. Somehow less obscene than watching his tongue tease me still. "You need some of this?" He offers, reaching down, one slick finger pushing into where his tongue had been. "A little, a little..." "I've gotcha..." He nuzzles my calf, his hand wraps around neatly and he stretches his neck to nose at my ankle, to kiss his way back down from there to my knee once more, as his fingers open me up for him. It wipes the rest of the world from my mind, to have him sink into me, to hear him groan and to watch his face, flushed and sweaty, as he pours his focus into me alone as well. I have been fucked before, and often enough. I have never been made love to before him. While one hand stays on my leg-- to keep me in place would be only a poor excuse-- the other slides up my belly to my chest, teases at one nipple and then the other with brief little pinches, with tiny circles made by the rough pad of one finger. And here and there, my own sex is caressed, in between other attentions. I like the wandering, the way I can never quite anticipate perfectly what that one hand will do. He brings me off first, I have had enough foreplay, and after he comes, after he pulls out, he collapses beside me to pull me close. I am too happy to cuddle up to him, to push away serious thoughts a little longer in his arms. "So that was fun." He says, breath still coming a little hard. "It was." I agree. "Sorry about before. I mean, about getting whipped cream all over your nice dress." "That is all right. The dry cleaners think I have a sister. When I am in a suit and the dress is on a hanger, it does not look like it fits me." I shrug. "Besides... that was fun, too." "Think there's more in the can. If I get a second wind, I'm gonna... think of something with that." He chuckles. I laugh, turning to hide my face against his chest, to breathe in the scent of his sweat. "If you get a second wind, you think of whatever you want to."
I am so eager for a new post! I can't wait.
[116] I cried... because of you.
>>117 you weren't the only one. Though I must admit, I'm worried this fic has died, and maybe seeing these posts will magically revive anne. Anne, please continue. We love you and this fic. Pretty please with cherries and sprinkles and a balloonicorn on top.
I must say I prefer the MvM one. I really hope that fic isn't dead.
Anne... Pls
Well, by way of her tumblr, she apologizes for the delay, and informs us life decided to happen. And she is trying to work her way back into writing. So, at least she isn't dead. >>120 you made my soul weep.
I just foud this on Anne's Tumblr http://annethecatdetective.tumblr.com/post/44214841955/some-ending-of-base-around-the-corner (I’m just putting this on tumblr because I literally have no idea how I was supposed to get from where the fic is now to the ending… but I have been all blocked up for FAR TOO LONG not to at least try to offer some kind of fluffy resolution. I’m just sorry there’s not more in between stuff…)
I actually really liked this. I didn't even come for the porn. The plot and character interactions made me read all the way through.
I'm really sad to see this end; I'm really gonna miss Geneviève and her Sniper. While I did read most of your stories featuring Spy and Sniper, these two are the one that spoke to me the most. There’s character like that that are hard to say good bye to, especially when their story his only really beginning. Speaking of story, I feel like I'm missing a part of their story between the "last" night at the hotel and the reunion. There’s too much of a time skip between the two and, well let’s be honest, I find this somewhat disappointing. Oh, Anne you have no idea how much I hate myself right now for saying that. But if you would have used a smaller time skip, say Spy’s end of contract a few letters then ‘The End’, it’s would have made the pill go down smoother. Boy, do I feel bad right now, telling you of my disappointments especially after such a great story. But I cannot blame you for having writer’s block. I really hope that one day you’ll choose to revisit the story and fill in some of the gaps.
What a shame. I was looking forward to read some drama caused by the RED Spy.
Oh Anne, the end made my heart just swell. You amaze me every time I read your work. I'm sorry that life is getting in the way of good things for you. Be well, please, and continue writing such masterpieces.
From Anne's Tumblr http://annethecatdetective.tumblr.com/post/44780857304/request-fill-for-cosmic ((Can you write something about Genevieve’s support group that she mentioned?))
for some reason, genevieve is my favorite incarnation of the spy i've ever seen. she's like femspy without all the ridiculous trappings that usually come with femclasses. and i usually like to see femclasses paired with other femclasses, but something about her and straight sniper really works basically i'm trying to say i'm rly glad you're continuing with genevieve stories even tho the main storyline is wrapped up
I prefer men staying men.
Anon 129) I don't always hate when people forget to sage, but when I do it's usually because someone's commented something really irrelevant and trans-phobic.
@LipstickandKnives I beg your pardon? I did not forget to sage, in case you're accusing me for that. I'm also not trans-phobic. My best friend is a trans-guy. Please fetch your brain from the cloakroom before posting your BS ^^ I like Anne's style of writing. She is very talented, but I prefer fics where people don't twist the characters too much (especially when it comes to fem!s in ANY way). I was never able to see the Spy in this fic as I read it. I hope to read more man/man from Anne again soon. - anon129
@ Anon 129: To be fair, when I read your comment, I ALSO thought you were being transphobic. Without any context, I thought you were saying, "I prefer when people assigned male at birth stick to that assignment regardless of how they might feel about it." You could have said, "I prefer the Spy staying (blankety blank character trait)", but instead your reply hinged on gender, in a thread dealing with trans issues. Being that you have a trans friend (that's always a sticky wicket: the 'I have a friend that falls into this oppressed minority and therefore can NEVER be offensive!' argument) I would think you would be more sensitive to the kinds of dialogues that open up when trans issues are discussed. I'm not accusing you of anything other than poor wording, initially, because how exactly was I, and commenter #130, for that matter, to read into your comment? ..... Anne, I hope you feel up to connecting where this story broke off, here, and where it wrapped up, on the tumblr, someday. I was looking forward to the DRAMAs. YES.
Look what I found on Anne's Tumblr, more stories featuring Geneviève and her Sniper http://annethecatdetective.tumblr.com/post/48915280547/getting-in-a-quick-request-because-i-have-this-au-on-my ((That story with Genevieve was so sweet. Could you write something with Sniper meeting her friends?)) http://annethecatdetective.tumblr.com/post/48917734096/other-genevieve-fic-bit ((set some years down the road, not a crossover of AUs (though not explicitly not one either, I guess). This one does involve family disownership issues for a side character, so fair warning on that, but ends well after some strife.))