1 . Name: Anonymous @ 2011-05-03 15:47

This is my first time writing for TF2. Hopefully it's not too bad.

@

Love, or something like it, is a dangerous thing in war. It's dangerous enough on its own, because deaths happen, hearts get broken. Nothing the Respawn can't (usually) fix, but you have seen the heartache written into the hard lines of Heavy's face as he watches his faithful doctor get one of his arms blown clean off on the battlefield.

It's far more dangerous when you fall for someone playing for the other side.

Love is a word that seems far too feminine and, well, affectionate to describe it. Love describes feelings too deep and warm, and this is a rawer sort of attraction, magnetic and undeniable. It's closely entertwined with an even more confusing brand of hate, and it makes you do stupid things.

Love is a word that implies kindness. This is something all its own.

It's the butterfly knife poised at your back again.

It's the sultry voice in your ear, speaking French (you don't know French) to you like you're a long lost lover, even as that same knife touches your jugular, threatens the thin flesh of your throat with its sharp blade. You can feel him smelling your skin, the day's sweat mingled with aftershave, his nose pressing into the back of your neck.

You struggle, once the weapon is safely away from your arteries, and you almost succeed in pinning him down on the dusty, cramped floor of your current nest. He smiles a thin, cold smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

He slices across your hand, and the sudden pain makes you jerk away to instinctively cradle your injury -- it's a sloppy, uneven cut, in contrast to the quick, calculated work that both of you are familiar with. This temporary lull is all he needs to turn the tables, catching your wrists and shoving you forcefully to the ground.

In a show of mock gentleness, he raises one of your wrists towards his face, carefully licks the blood from your wound. It has always scared the shit out of you when he does that, but you try not to let it show, gritting your teeth as his tongue grinds into the fresh cut.

"You look affected, mon amour," he whispers in a sickly sweet tone, hovering over you with one knee forcing your legs apart. It's so practiced, so routine; you've been through this same song and dance maybe a dozen times, some of them ending in one of you killing the other. Death means nothing when you wake up afterwards (sometimes with a boner, like that one time where everyone was looking, God damn it), and it's one more way that the days blur into monotony and madness.

"Piss off."

You still let him do this, you don't try to kill him the second you see him. You like to tell yourself that you're letting him do it because it does break the monotony.

You do not enjoy this. Absolutely not. And his hand gripping you through fabric, roughly groping the outline of your embarrassingly hard prick, well, that's just you reacting to stimuli. Any man would be hard in this situation.

"Your words say one thing, and your body says another," he whispers softly, and the sound of his voice makes you shiver in a way you don't like, his gloved hand carefully pulling open your fly and then carefully pulling out your cock.

He could just as easily take you, and you're not entirely convinced you would mind, but when it comes to sex, it's always you doing the penetrating, even if it's on his terms. He doesn't make a sound, but sometimes you catch a glimpse of something in his eyes, see him bite his bestubbled lip or clench his teeth as he takes you in. It's a small tell, but it's enough to tell you that he's affected by this. It isn't just routine, and the puppetmaster is not always in control.

And you have become addicted to those tells. Anything to make you feel like you're not just a pawn in his game.

He rocks you into his body almost mechanically, angles each thrust perfectly to pleasure himself. He does not protest when your hands encircle his surprisingly thin neck, nor does he stop moving as you squeeze hard enough to bruise.

You can hear his labored breathing, feel his pulse pounding angrily just underneath your fingers, see the desperation written into his face. It's unbearably satisfying to watch his poker face break apart piece by piece, as your thumbs dig into the tendons of his neck and he struggles to inhale. His body is stiff and tight around you.

He is not a killing machine. He is a man, like you are, masquerading as one.

You shudder and release into him with a raw moan as your hands pull away, and he lets out a choked sound you can barely focus on as the blood rushes back into his head and air fills his burning, aching lungs. It pushes him over the edge, something you can tell by the tight heat clenching around you. Also the fact that he just ruined your shirt.

His face is red, and a rare anger flashes across his eyes when he sees you smiling like you've got the upper hand. It's amusing, watching him struggle to rebuild his composure. Kind of cute, almost, if that's a word that can be applied to grown men who repeatedly make attempts on your life.

It's not love, but you can't exactly call it hate, either.

It's the butterfly knife poised at your back again.

It's the sultry voice in your ear, whispering "au revoir, ma chérie".

Your world goes black.