This is my very first attempt at TF2 fic, and is a oneshot. Please be gentle. ___________ Poulette *** I don’t remember all that much. I don’t remember my name, for example. Sometimes when I try the fragments fly around like leaves in a teacup. I recall being relieved when the van stopped for me on the highway out of town, and the thin one looked out. He said I could hide with them as long as I needed to, and laughed when I hid my head under a blanket in the back. I don’t remember what I was running from, only that I did not want to remember. The soft one is almost as small as I am, and always comes to me naked. I hear the door open and close, then rustlings of fabric and metal on the stone as he strips while walking. He smells like engine oil and soap, and says nothing until afterward. He likes to touch me everywhere, with both his warm and cold hands. He learned one day that if he used his fingers inside me when I came, my cries poured forth babbling, fluting chirps. Once, when he didn’t stop I fainted, and when I woke up he was gone. This room has no windows, and the light that shines through the frosted glass in the door can come on at any hour. I wake instantly at this, and can even steal a minute or two to groom myself before the door opens. I don’t remember how I arrived. Or what happened between that day and when I woke up in this room, on a pile of blankets in that corner behind the boxes. They come to me here when they can’t sleep. Many nights can pass where they don’t come, but those are rare. I guess they don’t sleep well. The big one is the nicest. He almost always asks first, and never goes on top since that first time. He always sneaks in honey for the grain paste that is all I am can really eat now, and always brushes my hair while I clean up. He tells me stories in his own language, which is wild and choppy like a ravine in flood. I can hear his smile when he teases me into breathy laughter. He likes me to bite him in little pecks all down his chest and promises one day to show me the moon. The thin one has only seen me a handful of times. Since he discovered that I could speak with my lips, he has always whispered to me. He likes me to lick him everywhere, and cries when he comes. His accent is lilting and syncopated, but he lives and breathes guilt. He was angry when he found the cold one had removed the nails from my fingers, but it didn’t stop him making me use them inside him to make him fly. I do remember the first changes. These things on my back, the scarring over my shoulders, the ropy flesh. The cold one cut me again and again to make them work. I’m small but still too big to fly with these wings. The ends drag on the ground if I’m not stretching them out and the tips of the feathers break. Some nights when I can’t sleep either I pace and make songs with the scraping ends on the floor. The hard one smells like soap, never takes his helmet off and likes to call me ‘Lady’. He is slow but methodical and very, very warm. He talks at me, not to me, as if I were a statue, and pulls at my limbs to pose me like a doll. He strokes my wings and never tries to take my hood off. I’m not sure he even knows I hear him. He always thanks me and brings me a flower. The last time, it was some sort of lily. It died after two nights and the quiet one took it away. Sometimes I hear noises from the room beyond the door. Voices mainly. When I hear laughter I shiver in my corner. I can usually tell when it’s night time; when it gets quiet and the screams and the explosions stop. They think I can’t hear it, but I can. Even through the thick walls. It is a recurring song every day, varying minimally like ripples on a stream. The old one smells of cigarettes, cologne and dust. His hands are soft, and he always takes his gloves off. He likes playing with my nipples, tugging at them until they stand up stiff enough to pinch between his fingers when he cups my awkwardly soft breasts. He uses all my openings, favouring one or another from time to time. He likes to bite and suck hard at my skin to mark me. He likes to tell me scandalous things about the others, but I don’t know if any of them are true. Some of them frighten him. The young one comes to me most often, but doesn’t say much after that first time. His breath always smells sweet and chemical, like some sort of candy. Sometimes he just curls up with me in the corner and holds me. Sometimes he is rough and wanting, and I can hear the tears in his breathing as he shouts his release. He always takes my hood off to see my face, even though the cold one tells him not to. His eyes are full of many things when he looks at me, besides just the anger in his voice. The cold one frightens me. He insists on my wearing the hood whenever anyone comes to me. He smells of bleach and metal and never takes his gloves off. He always makes me stand for his inspection beforehand, impersonal fingers pinching and tweaking for closer observation while he mutters under his breath. Sometimes he pets me like a beloved cat, and sometimes he hurts me. He delights in my fragile bones and paper thin skin, and is endlessly inventive. He whispers tenderly in my ear when he sends me voiceless into the dark, and when I return I am always covered in drying fluids and new scars. The singing one comes to me often, his voice seemingly harsh but so very threaded with melody. He smells of smoke and pepper and alcohol, and it makes me sneeze. He keeps his boots on when he mounts me, and laughs heartily while holding me spreadeagled by the jesses on my ankles. He calls me things I don’t understand, and always offers me drinks from his bottle. I learned quickly that that makes me very sick. He once took my hood off, stared at my face then turned away. He has always made me keep it on since. I’m not sure I like him. I don’t know what else has been done to me. I know that when I am agitated the wings on my back flutter and thrash uncontrollably, and my heartbeat clatters like raindrops on a tin roof, much faster than the hoofbeats I was used to. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I remember being wrapped in blankets and locked in a box at least once. The quiet one touches me like I am a strange new thing. They smell of smoke and rubber, and make me lie me down on the blankets while they pace around me restlessly. Their gloved hands stroke me like a sheet of paper, then slide curious fingers into every orifice. Sometimes they break off the pacing abruptly, spread my thighs, then lick and suck until I am delirious, fingers in my mouth to choke off my noises. Sometimes I lie there and listen as they lean against a wall, rhythmic wet noises and groans signalling their solitary pleasure. I don’t remember much. But at least here I’m not the only one without a name.