A/N: This was a hard song to write for. Whenever I hear it I think of Raymond Watts and Sascha Konietzko having rough European style sex, but I wasn't about to write about that. It's a bit creepy, writing about real people. So, initially, after watching the video for IAMX's "Missile" I got an idea. That's an incredibly sexy video by the way. You should watch it.

This reminds me too damn much of Echoes of Love and Ecstasy which makes me slightly upset, but whatever. Just in time for Valentine's day!

Brute
(Based on the song by KMFDM).

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It was strange for them, really, because they didn't love each other any more and hadn't for some time. It was all about making the other hurt now, making them beg for something they could never really have again.

She yanks the lank noose of pearls around his neck, just enough to make it hard to breathe, but nothing else.

"Do you like it?"

Not a question so much as a demand.

"No."

But that's the game. Struggle until your wrists are raw and red, the only real restraint is the closure of taut, painted lips over gasping ones.

"Don't mind the phone darling, the machine will get it."

She hasn't gotten any real pleasure out of it lately, not really. It's not about the sex, so much as seeing him in pain.

Is that sadistic?

Everything's sadistic she thinks, and places the gun to his head.

Pop.

She wonders what it would be like if the revolver wasn't perpetually barren.

It's the first time she's smiled in weeks.

It's hard to ask for more with a gag stuck in your throat like a bobbed apple, but he manages anyway. The pain is all that's left, scratches so shallow they'll fade by the morning. The scars are the real problem, but they've been there so long neither of them know how to bring them up.

They have to be so careful about what they say now, when everything's as patched up and empty as shells.

And in the morning, when the toys are away and things seem normal, she does not glance at him with the quiet desire in her eyes that he had always known, and he does not whisper words that make her shiver.

They're just two people now, who sometimes share a bed, and couldn't keep up a conversation to save their lives.

But that's the way these things tend to be.