#athenas somewhere in the distance like “so NOW you wanna kill.” | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thelastspeecher · 6 years

Text

I’ve been reading the books that the Olympian Falls AU is based on (well. reading the new ones; the earlier ones it would be re-reading). and they’re so great and it got me all pumped and I wrote more for that AU today. so here, have Stan and Angie reuniting after not seeing or talking to each other in years. naturally, their reunion involves knives and punching, bc that’s what the best reunions all have to have.

Stan silently approached the small semi-circle of demigods sitting around the campfire. He couldn’t make out any chains or other methods of keeping the kids hostage, but that didn’t mean anything. Threats could be just as effective as physical bondage. He carefully tapped on the shoulder of the closest teen. The teen let out a small yelp.

“Shh,” Stan hissed. The teen looked at him with wide, gray eyes. Stan recognized those eyes.

A kid of Athena, huh? Good. I can explain things fastest to him.

“I’m here to rescue you,” Stan continued. The demigod frowned.

“What? But-” An arrow zipped by Stan, nicking his shoulder. He jerked away from the teen instinctively.

“Leave him alone!” a commanding voice said. Stan looked around. He could see a shadowy figure standing a short distance away, bow drawn and an arrow ready to fire.

“Like Hades I will,” Stan growled. The person holding the demigods hostage fired another arrow. This one scratched Stan’s calf.

“That’s my last warnin’ shot, bud. If ya don’t leave us alone right now, I’ll start aimin’ more lethally.”

“Oh, screw you,” Stan snapped, drawing his sword. He charged at the stranger. The stranger dropped their bow and drew a dagger from somewhere just in time to clash with Stan’s sword.

“I hate melee fights,” the stranger muttered. Stan grinned.

“Good. ‘Cause I love ‘em.” He knocked the dagger out of the stranger’s hand, forcing them to take a step back. “Now, I’m gonna take these kids to safety, and you’re gonna either run away or die. Doesn’t make a difference to me, really.” He advanced on the stranger, who continued to back away. There was a faint splash. Suddenly, Stan’s sword was grabbed out of his hand by an unseen force. Stan blinked. “Huh?”

“Mighty nice sword you’ve got here,” the stranger said idly. They were now holding Stan’s weapon, looking it over.

“Hey!” Stan protested. “How- how did-”

“That’s fer me to know, not you,” the stranger said. Stan gritted his teeth.

Fine! I’m better with my fists, anyways. Stan rushed forward, prepared to punch the daylights out of this hostage-taker, only for his outstretched fist to be caught by the stranger. He froze. That- that never happens. No one can catch my punches. Avoid them, maybe, but stop them? He could feel water beginning to soak through his shoes. We’re standing in a puddle. Gears started to turn in his head. But before he could finish his thought, the stranger kicked him in the chest, and he went flying backwards, landing on the dirt dangerously close to the campfire. The demigods closest to him scrambled backwards. Okay. There’s only one person I’ve ever met who likes to pull that shit. The stranger advanced on him. Light from the campfire illuminated their face, flickering in familiar sea-green eyes.

“Angie!” Stan yelped. Angie froze. “Shit, kid, if you’d told me it was you-”

“Stan?” Angie said, aghast. She let out a short laugh. “Gods, Pines, yer goin’ to get yourself killed one of these days.” Stan couldn’t help his grin, now that he recognized the attacker as one of his oldest friends.

“Yeah. I hear that a lot,” he said dismissively. Angie held out her hand. Stan grabbed it and allowed her to pull him up. He idly dusted off his clothes. “Good thing it rained earlier today. Otherwise I woulda kicked your ass, instead of it being the other way around.”

“I don’t leave that to chance anymore,” Angie said. She tapped a canteen clipped to her belt. “Always keep some water on me, in case I need a boost.”

“She cheats,” Stan translated for the teen demigods, who were watching Stan and Angie banter. Angie scoffed.

“It ain’t cheatin’. It’s gettin’ the most out of my abilities. I can control water and get super-charged by it, so I make sure to have some on hand.” Angie punched Stan playfully. “Never know when I might run up against a master boxer like you.” The son of Athena Stan had noticed earlier cleared his throat.

“Uh, who is he?” the teen asked. Angie beamed and clapped Stan on the shoulder. Stan stifled a grin at how she had to reach up to do so.

She never did get that growth spurt she kept saying she would.

“This is one of my friends from camp. Stan Pines, son of Hermes.” Stan bowed extravagantly. “I guess you got sent by someone to help escort these kids?”

“Yeah. But no one said that they’d already have someone helping them,” Stan said. He raised an eyebrow at Angie. “Especially not a girl who claimed she was leaving the whole Greek world behind her to go to ‘college’.” He put air quotes around the last word to emphasize how he felt about secondary education. Angie rolled her eyes.

“Come on, I got you a bit beat up. Kiddos, keep doin’ whatever ya were doin’ while I get Stan cleaned up.” Angie led Stan away from the campfire, to a small tent. She ushered Stan inside.

“It’s dark as fuck in here.”

“There’s a lantern.” Angie crawled in and rummaged around. There was a small click. Light filled the tent. “See?”

“Now I do.”

“Oh, you.” Angie opened a small first aid kit. As she grabbed bandages and antiseptic, Stan watched her. She looked different from the last time Stan had seen her. It wasn’t just that she had cut her hair into a short bob. It was also the way she held herself. More confidently. She seemed a bit paler than usual; her always present beach tan was washed out by the harsh light from the lantern. Angie tucked a strand of caramel-colored hair behind one ear. Stan realized he was staring. He cleared his throat.

“So, uh, how was college?” Stan asked quietly. Angie shrugged.

“Decent. Majored in oceanography with a minor in zoology.”

“Really? Oceanography?” Stan said. Angie glanced at him.

“Yeah. What about it?”

“That’s cheating.”

“Oh, please.”

“Your dad is the god of the oceans. Getting a degree in the study of the ocean is like me getting a degree in thievery. You’ve got an unfair advantage.”

“I like to think of it as an innate talent,” Angie said. “A gift.”

“If that makes you feel better.”

“Yer awful rude to the person patchin’ ya up.” Stan grinned.

“Nah. I’m just teasing you, kid.”

“You’ll have to stop callin’ me that at some point. I’m in my twenties now, y’know.” Angie began to dab at Stan’s shoulder wound with a cotton ball. “What have you been up to?”

“Not much,” Stan said. “Got a job and a place in the city. I help out at the camp whenever I can.” Angie’s mouth twitched. “What?”

“Yer havin’ a rough time movin’ on from Camp Half-Blood, huh?”

“It’s not like I have much to fall back on. You’ve got your siblings and your smarts. All I’ve got is Ford. And he’s-” Stan cut himself off. Angie paused.

“Did the two of ya have a fallin’ out?” she asked softly. Stan shrugged. Angie tsked. “Don’t move like that. I’m tryin’ to clean ya up.”

“Right. Uh, it’s- it’s a long story,” Stan muttered. Angie didn’t pry further. Instead, she changed the topic.

“Don’t ya have yer mom and older brother to spend time with?”

“I haven’t talked to them in a while, either.”

“Why not?”

“They’re mortal. I don’t wanna put ‘em in danger.”

“Oh, Stanley,” Angie sighed. She stroked Stan’s cheek fondly. “Ya were always a lot sweeter ‘n ya claimed to be.” Stan could feel a flush starting to spread across his features, starting at the skin directly underneath Angie’s warm, soft hand. He coughed, trying to disrupt the tension.

“How’d you get roped into escorting a buncha demigods to camp? You said you were gonna leave all of this stuff behind.”

“I did say that.” Angie’s hand fell away from Stan’s cheek. “And I meant it. My senior year of high school and all of college, I stayed out of things. I didn’t seek anything out. Only dealt with things what came after me.” She busied herself with something in the first aid kit. “But after I got my degree, I took a gap year. I felt like there was somethin’ missin’. And I didn’t want to get my graduate degree with that feelin’ hangin’ over me.

“I was walkin’ ‘round campus when I saw ‘em. A pack of teens, all of ‘em carryin’ weapons of some sort, bein’ escorted by a satyr. And right behind ‘em was a big ole snake. Naturally, I intervened. Sliced that snake ‘fore it could hurt those kids.” Angie shrugged. “Ended up joinin’ ‘em to protect ‘em. And here we are, now.”

“Here we are, now,” Stan repeated quietly. “Mind if I join your little group? There’s a lotta kids here. Seems like you could use an extra hand.” Angie smiled at him.

“I can always use an extra hand, if that hand is yours, Stanley Pines.”

#I wanna focus on my OTHER writing #like my multichaps or prompts in my inbox #but I keep having these fits of exhaustion from my new meds #so I'm just sort of riding the waves and writing the things I get inspired for only #bc those are what I have the energy and motivation to write #anyways this was fun. enjoy.#Olympian Falls AU #Stangie #Stanley Pines #Angie McGucket #my writing #ficlet #speecher speaks

13 notes · View notes

classywastelandbread-blog · 6 years

Text

Honored Spirits - Smooching

Not exactly how I had meant for it to come out but in the end I had to divide it into two chapters otherwise it’d be too long. (That’s what she said?)

Smooching means kissing, Soba said, bobbing its head.

“Yes,” McCree agreed neutrally as he reloaded Peacekeeper with a motion made smooth by long practice. He took his time shooting though he could obviously do it faster and each bullet struck dead center of the bullseye.

The ancient spirit didn’t distract him, only speaking when he was reloading – a polite habit that McCree was appreciative of. It waited until he manually loaded each bullet and flicked the spent shells out of the cylinders before saying, Why are you not smooching Hanzo?

McCree carefully reloaded and took aim; this time he shot the 10 ring, aiming for the black line itself. Distantly he could hear Udon as well – something that Hanzo had gently explained was more or less unavoidable. The voices of the spirits were not bound by distance the way a physical voice was, though it was possible to extend out of their “range”; when McCree and Hanzo had parted ways, the dragons could barely “hear” each other.

Basic gun safety, Udon said disapprovingly as McCree flicked out the used casings. And Hanzo is not near enough for him to smooch.

“Firing,” McCree said out loud, feeling the thrum down his spine that indicated that Soba was passing his words on to Udon. This time he aimed at the 9 ring.

When he was done and reloading again, Soba drifted down around him and picked up one of the bullet casings in its awkward claws. It clattered against the counter in front of him as it slipped out of its loose grip and Soba landed on it like a hawk covering its prey.

“You get ‘em,” McCree told Soba with a chuckle, chambering the rounds and putting Peacekeeper down on the shallow bench in front of him. “Such proud and wise spirits,” he teased gently, scratching along Soba’s jaw. From nose to the very tip of its tufted tail it was longer than McCree was tall for all it only stood a little more than a hand off the ground…when it chose to use its legs, of course. Now it was able to arch its neck to meet his eyes.

Soba peered at him. Do not say that I am like a cat, it said disapprovingly, nipping playfully at his fingers despite the gravity of his words. I am a dragon – I am older and wiser than you can comprehend.

“I know,” McCree assured it after a quick check around the range to ensure that he was alone. “Wise and ancient being that you are. Ain’t nothing wrong with having a little fun now and then.”

A moment later Udon drifted through the wall, followed by Hanzo who took a more normal approach and used the door. (Unlike Genji, who would certainly have gone for a dramatic entrance and entered through the window despite it being down range.)

“Heya darlin’,” McCree said probably a little too-loudly, tipping his hat a little. It was ill-fitted over the bulky safety gear he wore, but it was better than getting tinnitus and having to be under Dr. Zeigler’s tender mercy overnight. He slipped the headphones off of his ears to hang around his neck and emptied the rounds from Peacekeeper. It didn’t seem like he would be shooting again anytime soon. “Come to join me?”

Despite being sort-of-dating for nearly two months, Hanzo still flushed when McCree used a pet name on him; he figured it was payback enough for Hanzo being well aware of McCree’s feelings for him through the dragons and not doing anything about it for nearly the entire year they had known each other.

Such an unsophisticated choice of weapon, Udon sniffed though it wasn’t as disapproving as it would have seemed.

“Hush,” Hanzo said out loud, cautiously approaching McCree.

McCree pointed a thumb at himself as he set Peacekeeper back down. “Who, me?” he teased. “Ain’t said nothin’ yet, darlin’.”

The archer scowled at him. “You knew what I meant,” he said gruffly.

Are you going to smooch? Soba asked. I don’t understand the point of it.

“For someone not understanding it, you’re certainly a fan of promoting it,” Hanzo hissed and McCree struggled not to laugh.

Udon bobbed its head as McCree reached for Hanzo – slowly, like one would reach for a nervous animal. Smooching is a way for humans to show affection, Udon said as solemnly as a monk.

I know that, Soba huffed, tossing its head. Udon snapped its head forward and stole the shell casing from beneath its claws. Hey! The larger dragon bobbed its head smugly and drifted slowly into the air.

Then why are you asking about smooching? Udon wanted to know as it alighted on the walls of one side of the cubicle. Its long tail hung down, nearly long enough for the tuft to brush the surface. It snapped it out of the way as Soba nipped at it.

Hanzo turned redder. “Who taught you that word?” he asked gruffly, crossing his arms across his chest nervously.

At the edge of the desk where it was clearly contemplating the spent shell casings on the ground around McCree’s feet, Soba craned its head to peer up at the men. Song Hana, it said simply. She says that you should smooch.

“You know how the team is,” McCree said with a chuckle, gently reeling Hanzo closer with an arm around his waist, having successfully caught himself a dragon. “I swear the walls of this base are held up by gossip!”

Words alone do not have enough force, Udon said from its perch. And these walls are held up by proper building practices and materials, not by words.

Hanzo looked pained and as McCree opened his mouth to say something, something in Hanzo’s eyes stopped him. “Udon doesn’t understand your phrase,” Hanzo said pointedly and McCree smiled crookedly.

“Just a sayin, darlin’,” he murmured, unable to tear his eyes away from Hanzo whose cheeks darkened slightly.

I don’t understand it, Soba complained. Smooching. Kissing. Why do you say the walls are held up by gossip? It doesn’t make sense.

Both men ignored the dragons. “You look ridiculous,” Hanzo said shyly, gently pulling the headphones off from where they were hooked around his neck.

McCree tipped his hat back with a casual smile and tucked Hanzo closer against his side. “I always do,” he teased, shaking a leg so the spur on his boot jingled.

To his glee, Hanzo ducked his head into McCree’s chest as he chuckled. “You do,” he agreed gravely as his fingers curled over the swell of McCree’s arm.

Are they going to smooch? Soba asked.

HUSH, Ramen thundered somewhere else. It was most likely lurking somewhere in the shooting range with Genji, spying on them like the gossip mongers they were.

McCree tipped his head forward in amusement, resting it against Hanzo’s forehead. Their noses brushed; Hanzo lifted his Stetson off his head and rested it on the bench where Soba curled smugly around it, careful to not bend the brim. “Is it always going to be like this?” he whispered.

“Pretty much?” Hanzo said with a breathless chuckle. His face was bright red. “Are we going to give them the satisfaction?” Say nothing, he heard Hanzo tell Udon and Soba who huffed.

Why are you fighting it? Udon muttered. You should smooch. Smooching is good.

Hanzo smiled shyly. “Smooching is nice,” he agreed, looping his arms around McCree’s neck.

“I can’t take them seriously when they say things like ‘smooching’,” McCree complained.

Udon huffed. Kissing is good for the health, Soba protested. The act of kissing can release oxytocin, a calming hormone in the brain that can also trigger the creation of emotional bonds between humans and animals. There are also articles that indicate that kissing is a good way to boost the immunity of the participants through the sharing of bodily fluids!

I like the sound of “smooching” better, Udon grumbled, to McCree’s surprise – it wasn’t typically one for such frivolous things.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Soba bob its head. BE QUIET AND LET THEM SMOOCH! Ramen thundered. To McCree, it still sounded faint and a little echo-y. STOP INTERRUPTING THEM WITH YOUR SCIENCE THINGS!

SCIENCE THINGS ARE IMPORTANT! Soba thundered back, tossing its head.

Hanzo wheezed, nearly head-butting McCree as he collapsed inward in laughter. You’re interrupting things! Udon and Soba transferred Genji’s internal voice and McCree was momentarily surprised.

On the other hand, it explained so many things. He kept that thought to himself, biting his tongue as he tried to hold back sympathetic snorts of laughter.

By all that is good and holy, Genji’s disembodied continued in mock annoyance. Why did you have to get into a debate on Science Things?

“Hey,” McCree said out loud before the bickering could continue. “Guess since the mood’s killed…y’ wanna watch Jurassic Park? Since you got the movies for Christmas?”

Unsurprisingly, Udon and Soba were excited by the prospect and darted away. YOU RUINED IT! Ramen thundered from wherever it hid.

“Movie marathon?” McCree suggested into Hanzo’s ear. “If only to distract the kids?”

Hanzo shivered in his arms. “Depends where,” he teased. “In public or not?”

Twisting his head, McCree brushed Hanzo’s cheek with his lips in a not-quite kiss. “My room or yours?” he asked, letting his voice drop to feel Hanzo shiver again. He toyed with the belt loops of Hanzo’s sinfully tight jeans. “Or the common room? Seems to me we got a lot to make up for.”

When Hanzo looked up, his face was flushed bright red but his eyes and smile had a wicked glint to them. “Meet you in the common room, cowboy,” he said at a more audible volume – clearly for Genji, wherever he was hiding, to overhear. “After you clean up this mess.” He made a show of sniffing the air around McCree. “And shower,” he said, slapping both hands against the sharpshooter’s chest. “You smell.”

Laughing, McCree let Hanzo slip out of his arms. “You weren’t complainin’ earlier, darlin’,” he teased and nearly tripped over a spent casing. “Shit.” Hanzo laughed as he slipped out of the door of the range.

“You have it bad, Agent McCree,” Athena’s disembodied voice teased from one of the speakers nearby.

McCree smiled, reaching for the broom nearby. “Don’t I know it,” he said with a sigh.

Did I fool you? ;P

I may post a bonus chapter (eventually) about them opening gifts a few days after Christmas (postponed due to people not being present due to visiting family or having a mission). Not sure went but...eventually I guess.

#smooching #I like that word #I blame ohayokuroneko #Hanzo Shimada #McHanzo #McCree #confused noodles #Genji and Ramen like to gossip #DC writes #Honored Spirits

59 notes · View notes

oodlyenough · 7 years

Text

fic: everybody’s got a little piece of someone they hide

5k, Rhys/Sasha. Set during the ep 3 roadtrip montage. Telling Sasha the truth—that he’d sort-of-accidentally given Handsome Jack control of a gun three feet away from her—seemed like a Bad Idea with a capital Bad.

Also on AO3.

“Right.” Sasha hopped to her feet and dusted the sand from the back of her pants so aggressively that Rhys, seated next to her at the campfire, leaned away for fear of breathing it in. “Well, I’ll be back.”

“What? Where are you going?”

“For a walk,” she said plainly.

“A walk? Now? Here?” he repeated incredulously. “Just… a peaceful nighttime walk alone through the terrifying Pandoran desert in the middle of the night?”

“Yeah.” Unphased, Sasha grabbed a bag from the inside of the open caravan door and slung it over her shoulder. “You... wanna come?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Uh, no, not particularly.” Infinitely dangerous as Pandora was in the day, Pandora by night—away from even the illusion of security offered by a campfire and a working vehicle—was an unqualified horror. “Sounds kind of nightmarish, actually.”

It seemed Sasha didn’t feel the same; she shrugged, then pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulders. “Well, okay. See you later.”

With that, she started off towards the horizon, fading from the firelight and making her way towards the rock outcropping in the distance. Rhys watched her go, contemplating Sasha’s definition of relaxation and how she might react to a day at the spa (boredom? delight? restlessness? confusion?), before leaning back on the heels of his hands and surveying the remaining group.

Because Rhys had felt weird about leaving poor, paralyzed Vaughn alone inside the caravan, he was propped up against a boulder, facing away from the smoke. Fiona looked deceptively peaceful, curled up and fast asleep atop the jacket she’d meticulously arranged so as not to crush the collar. Further from the fire, Loader Bot and Gortys were two minutes deep into a comparison of who knew the most digits of pi (thusfar a tie, as far as Rhys could tell, based on their synchronized recitation).

All of which left Athena, hunched over as she played the single most intense-looking game of solitaire Rhys had ever seen in his life.

She must have felt him staring, because she looked up from her cards and sat up straighter, looking either embarrassed or combative—it was hard to tell. An excruciating second of silence passed where they simply looked at each other.

Athena broke their staring contest first, followed by the silence. “Oh. It’s just us.” She looked at the others, paused, and looked back at him. “Do you... want something? Should we… talk?”

She sounded about as pained by the notion as he felt; Rhys could make conversation with everyone in the caravan, frozen Vaughn included, more easily than with Athena.

He reflexively let out a nervous laugh that, if anything, only made the atmosphere more awkward. “Actually, you know what, I think I will go for a walk with Sasha, after all. Cardio, right?”

“Sure,” said Athena, “Cardio.”

If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought she sounded amused.

Catching up to Sasha didn’t take long, although it did take enough energy that he slowed several feet behind her before calling her name in hope of masking the fact that he was winded.

“Sasha! Hey, wait up!”

It was only as she turned towards him, eyebrows raised in surprise, that he suddenly realized her earlier offer may not have been genuine. Quite possibly she had never really intended for him to join her and had only asked to keep up some degree of civility, relying on his cowardice to save her.

But her look of surprise was replaced by an amused smile, one hand on her hip. She didn’t look unhappy to see him.

“Changed your mind?”

Relieved he hadn’t just half-jogged from one socially awkward situation into another, he walked the distance between them, his right palm held out as a flashlight.

“Well, you know, thought you might need some company, and, frankly, it seemed ungentlemanly to let you wander the dark by yourself, so—” “You’re scared of Athena, aren’t you?”

“Terrified,” he agreed.

Sasha snorted. She turned back the direction she’d been walking, and Rhys fell into step next to her.

“She’s not going to hurt you,” said Sasha. “I mean, probably not.” She paused for effect. “At least, Fiona and I would stop her if she did.” Pause. “Probably.” Pause. “After a few good hits.” “Wow. That’s sweet.”

Sasha snickered again. “Sorry, am I being ungentlemanly?”

Rhys threw his hands into the air. “You know what? I'm taking my chances with Athena.”

But Sasha laughed and caught his bicep as he turned to leave. “Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I promise to stop Athena if she tries to kill you, which she won’t. Alright?”

Rhys blinked down at her hand on his arm. Her grip wasn't strong, but her touch pinned him in place effectively anyway; he was pretty sure he couldn't have walked away or, well, done much of anything, even if he wanted to.

“If you insist,” he said, hoping he sounded much cooler than he felt.

Sasha grinned as she let go of his arm, her free hand moving to adjust the strap of her shoulder bag before she started walking again. Rhys kept a step behind her, illuminating their path with his hand and watching Sasha curiously. For someone willingly wandering about a deathtrap in the middle of the night, she looked perfectly at ease. He was kind of jealous; he still hadn’t shaken the feeling that every single thing on Pandora, down to the individual grains of sand, wished him ill, specifically.

Sasha reached up to adjust her headband, shooting him a self-conscious smile as she did so.

Rhys swallowed. Well. Maybe not everything on Pandora.

He smiled back at her, plucking at the strap of her bag with one finger. “So what’s in the bag?”

“You’ll see,” she said, with an air of unnecessary mystery. “It’s a surprise.” Then she narrowed her eyes suspiciously and pointed a reprimanding finger towards his ECHO eye. “And don’t do that… thing.”

She clutched the bag tighter to her side, an action completely ineffective at preventing him from scanning anything, though he didn’t have the heart to tell her that. Instead he raised a hand in surrender.

“Okay, no peeking in the mystery bag, got it.”

Satisfied, Sasha nodded. She led them through the middle of a rock outcropping, and Rhys glanced behind them; the caravan, the campfire and the rest of the group were obscured from view.

“Are we going somewhere in particular?”

Sasha shrugged. “Sort of. I’ll know it when I see it.”

She stopped for a moment, searching their surroundings, apparently looking for something although Rhys couldn’t imagine what there was to find.

“Well,” he began, “if you’re looking for a bunch of rock and sand, you’ve come to—” “There we go!” Sasha cut him off, pointing to a hill of rock that looked to Rhys to be no different from every other hill of rock. She took off in that direction, bag jostling at her side. “Come on!”

Rhys ran after her, grateful that the length of his legs helped him compensate for Sasha’s actual speed. She finally came to a stop as they reached a rock ledge not much taller than she was, a more-or-less flat surface that stretched a couple feet in each direction. She ran her hand along the surface, inspecting it for God-knows-what, before she grinned again and nodded approvingly.

“Perfect.”

“Uh... yeah,” said Rhys, eyeing it skeptically and trying to feign enthusiasm. “Rocks. Cool. Totally way better than all the other rocks.”

Sasha ignored him. She plunged a hand into her mystery bag, pulling out one empty beer bottle. “Ta-dah!”

He stared. “I... don’t get it. What’s that for?”

She waggled the bottle enticingly between two fingers. “Spin the bottle, duh.”

The night air suddenly rose in temperature about sixty degrees, and Rhys felt his mouth go dry. “Oh. Oh. Uh. Really? But there’s only two of us. I mean—not that—uh—”

“Okay, that was obviously a joke,” said Sasha, eyeing him oddly before she reached up to place the bottle on top of the rock ledge.

Rhys forced a laugh, hoping the dark was enough to hide the fact that his face probably looked like it was on fire. “Ha, yeah, obviously. Same.”

Mercifully, Sasha was preoccupied with her bag, pulling out a second bottle, then a third, and a fourth, and an empty can, lining them all up along the rock like some weird art installation. She kept going, her bag getting lighter and lighter, and Rhys stepped back out of her way, watching with equal parts interest and confusion.

“There,” said Sasha, balancing the last of the cans and standing back to examine her handiwork.

“Wow, we drink a lot,” he observed.

Sasha tilted her head. “Yeah.” Then she turned, walking away from her creation.

Rhys looked back and forth between her and the rock, totally perplexed. “What? Is that it? You just… Did you just walk all the way out here to get rid of our garbage?” He looked at it again. “By littering?”

Sasha came to a stop about twenty feet away. “No.” She stuck her hand back into her mostly-empty bag and pulled out one of her beloved, enormous guns. “It’s target practice.”

“Oh.” It took a second, and then it clicked properly, and his eyes widened. “Oh!”

Gun balanced on her hip, Sasha laughed at him as he scrambled out of the way and over to her.

“You realize I wasn’t going to shoot at you,” she chided. She let the empty bag slide off her shoulder onto the ground. “Actually, I’m not going to shoot at all yet, you are.”

“What—” he began, then broke off with a soft oof noise as Sasha shoved the gun at him and he lifted his arms out of the way. “Oh, no, no, I don’t think that’s—”

“Come on,” she wheedled, still stubbornly holding it against his stomach for him to take. “It’s about time you learned how to use one of these, there’s enough people trying to kill you.”

She had a point. Still, he resisted, hands in the air like this was a strangely-executed stick-up. “I dunno, Sasha, the whole… guns and combat thing is really not—” “Your thing? Yeah, I’ve seen you in a fight, I’ve noticed. That’s the point.” She raised her eyebrows, then sighed, softening. “Look, you’re scared of your own shadow here on Pandora, right? I’m just trying to help.” She smirked. “You know, in case Fiona or I aren’t around to save your gangly ass.”

Rhys put his hands on his hips. “I’m choosing to hear your concern and not the insult with which you expressed it.” But Sasha’s look was imploring, and she did have a point, so he sighed and relented, cradling the gun like an extremely dangerous baby. “Okay, fine.”

Sasha beamed, an image he decided to cherish in the likely event that this somehow got both of them killed.

“Great.” She looked at the gun, her lips twitching in barely-concealed amusement. “Um… well, lesson one, don’t hold it so strange. Here.”

She moved in closer, taking his hands in hers as she adjusted his grip, closed his metal hand around the handle beneath the muzzle of the gun, pushed his shoulders into position.

He let her pose him like a Barbie, staring down at the top of her hair the whole time. His heartbeat, he noticed suddenly, was very loud. Was it always this loud? Could Sasha hear it? Did she think it was weird?

“Oh, cool, are we shooting stuff?” came a voice.

Even though he really should have been used to it by now, Jack’s voice nearly made Rhys jump out of his skin.

“Whoa, are you okay?” asked Sasha, oblivious to the fact that Handsome Jack was now standing two feet in front of her, looking on with an interest that could not possibly end well.

“Yeah… yeah, fine,” said Rhys, scowling at Jack as discreetly as he could manage. “Just, uh, got a chill, sorry.”

“Nice cover,” said Jack sarcastically, right as Sasha said, “A chill? It’s like eighty degrees out here.”

Doing his best to ignore Jack, Rhys shrugged.

The suspicious look on Sasha’s face didn’t last very long, and she turned back to the task at hand, moving his finger closer to the trigger.

“Okay, just aim for…” She pointed towards her makeshift firing range. “...well, anything, really. Maybe that bottle in the middle there?”

But the bottle she pointed towards was obscured by Jack, whose attention was trained on the gun.

“Ooh, let me do it,” said Jack. He looked up at Rhys expectantly, wiggling the fingers of both hands in invitation. “C’mon, it’ll be so good. Just gimme a teensy bit of control of your body, c’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Absolutely not,” hissed Rhys through gritted teeth.

“Uh, okay,” said Sasha, taking a step back, folding her arms and looking away. “Pick a different one, then.”

Rhys winced at her dejection. God, the secret-side-conversation-with-a-ghost thing was hard on interpersonal relationships.

“Oh, no, I just—I meant—I will absolutely… not… be… as bad as you’re expecting! Ha.”

Sasha stared at him like he was insane, which was probably a reasonable deduction. Rhys smiled back feebly.

“You got a real way with words, kid,” said Jack flatly. He glanced at Sasha, then sidled up to Rhys, still holding out his right arm as if on offer. “Look, you wanna impress her, right? I can help. Chicks love me.” Rhys doubted that. “And more importantly,” Jack carried on, “I can definitely hit that bottle of yours. So whadda ya say? I just need a liiittle bit of—” Rhys raised the gun and fired. The shot rang off ...somewhere, disappearing into the night sky. None of the bottles or cans even wobbled in the breeze.

“Wow,” said Jack. “You are bad.”

Sasha blinked, her arms unfolding, softened somewhat by his pitiful shot.

“Okay, well, that was… close,” she said gently, in a voice that suggested otherwise.

“No it wasn’t,” said Jack. “It was pathetic. See? You need my help.”

Rhys closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. It really ought to be easier to ignore a voice coming from your own head.

Misreading his response as disappointment, Sasha nodded toward the rock. “Maybe we should move closer.”

“You don’t need to be closer, you need someone who can shoot,” Jack insisted.

Rhys shook his head at Sasha. “No, it’s okay. I’ll just…” He fired another shot; this time, at least, it got absorbed by the boulder, even if it was about two feet lower than the row of targets.

“That was… better,” said Sasha, nodding encouragingly. “I mean, still needs some work, but… you hit something!”

It sounded kind of like she was talking to Gortys, which Rhys might have found insulting were he not so distracted by Jack standing in front of him again, shaking his head. “You’re killing me, cupcake,” Jack said, gesturing desperately. “The whole hokey Partridge family roadshow adventure is hard enough to stomach, but watching you embarrass yourself like this, and in front of a broad, it... it hurts me, it really does. You gotta let me help, dude. Lemme have some fun. Help me to help you, Rhysie—”

Terrible shot though Rhys was, with Jack standing so close, it was remarkably easy to fire straight through his holographic chest.

Sasha’s forehead crinkled in confusion. “Um…”

Jack looked down at the would-be wound, then folded his arms. “Now, that was just rude.”

Rhys smirked.

Jack rolled his neck like he was cracking imaginary bones and flexed his fingers. “Alright, well, hey, I tried to be nice.”

Rhys had just enough time to register his own alarm before Jack stuck out his right arm and Rhys’ cybernetic arm followed suit. Jack ripped the gun out of Rhys’ left hand, taking control of the trigger.

He fired two shots in quick succession, both shattering one of Sasha’s bottles, before Rhys grabbed at the gun again. In the struggle between right and left, the third shot got fired wildly into the air.

“What the hell, Rhys?” cried Sasha, jumping away from him and looking, for once, truly frightened.

Jack doubled over in laughter; with renewed control of both hands, Rhys took the opportunity to drop the gun to the ground. “Shit,” said Rhys, stepping back from the gun and raising his arms. He looked over at Sasha, who was still staring at him in horror, tensed and poised like she was ready to fight. “Shit, Sasha, I—”

“What the hell was that?” she demanded.

“That’s—I was—it—” Rhys stammered.

“Oh man,” said Jack, straightening up from his laughter. “Boy, she did not like that, did she?” He shook his head, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. “Hey, what can you do, you know? It’s always a fine line between ‘impressed’ and ‘terrified’.” He clapped one weightless hand on Rhys’ shoulder. “Well, have fun on date night, kid.”

With that, Jack vanished.

But the relief Rhys normally felt with Jack’s disappearance was muted by the way Sasha was looking at him, like whatever trust he’d managed to earn since they’d met had just evaporated.

Goddamn it, Jack.

Hands still in the air, Rhys nudged the gun towards her with his foot, and Sasha knelt slowly to pick it up, dusting it off with her sleeve, her eyes fixed on him the entire time.

“Sasha, I’m—I’m sorry,” he said, as earnestly as he could. “I didn’t mean to scare you, that was—it was—”

“Explain.” Sasha’s stare was uncompromising.

“Right. Yeah.” He swallowed, frantically searching for an explanation that wouldn’t make Sasha any more wary of him than she already was. “Glitch! It was a glitch.” He pointed an accusatory finger at his right arm.

Sasha returned to her full height, clutching her gun protectively, her eyes narrowed.

“A glitch,” she repeated.

It seemed wrong to exploit the technological naivete of someone who shouted “enhance!” at the air, but telling Sasha the truth—that he’d sort-of-accidentally given Handsome Jack control of a gun three feet away from her—seemed like a Bad Idea with a capital Bad.

“Yep,” he said, bolstering the lie with as much confidence as he could. “There’s a targeting program in this—” he waved his metal fingers at her “—standard issue, I guess, never used it before, but I thought I’d give it a try and, well, you saw how that went, so…” He gave what he hoped was a convincingly casual shrug and ran his hand through his hair. “Nothing ever runs right out of the box, right? I mean, they say that, but then you install it and you gotta download updates and... The software probably just needs a patch or… seven. I can fix it, look! Fixing it!”

As the cherry on his cake of lies, he opened his palm, displaying random strings of garbage code that he hoped might look convincing to the uninitiated. Sasha squinted at the code, squinted at him, then slowly relaxed.

“Okay... well, that was weird, and I’m gonna hold onto the gun now,” she said.

“Please do,” Rhys agreed. “All yours.”

Finally comfortable enough to take her eyes off him, Sasha turned to the firing range, easily picking off one of the cans in a single shot. With her turned back to him, Rhys sighed and shut off the fake code, using that hand to rub his neck guiltily instead.

“So…” He watched her shoot another can, fishing for a topic of conversation to distract from his web of deceit. “How long have you been doing this?” he asked. “What, shooting? Like two minutes, you’ve been here the whole time.”

“No, not this,” he gestured to the targets with his hand. “I mean, this.” He gestured broadly to the air around them.

Sasha raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you mean living a life of crime?”

“Hey, your words, not mine.”

“Pretty much forever.” She closed one eye to focus on a target, firing one handed. A bottle exploded with a satisfying crack. “Our mom died when I was three, so…”

Rhys flinched. Oh. Right. “Sorry, I didn’t—”

Sasha shrugged, but her eyes were downcast. “It’s okay. I don’t really remember her.” She looked at him and offered a smile. “Fi says I look like her, so, that’s cool, I guess.” Heaving the gun back up to shoulder height, she took out another bottle. “Anyway, then Fiona took care of us, until I got old enough to pull my own weight.”

Old enough in this context, Rhys realized, probably meant about six or seven, and he frowned. As competent and capable as the sisters now were, imagining them as children, left to their own devices on the streets of Hollow Point, tugged at something in his chest.

“Wow, that’s…” He took a step forward, closing some of the distance that had built between them. “I mean, I almost died, like, fifty times in my first ten minutes on Pandora, and that was as an adult. Being a kid… that’s impressive.” “Yeah. Well.” Sasha lowered the gun. “I was lucky to have Fi. She was always a quick thinker. And a good liar.” Her lips twisted at a memory, neither a frown nor a smile. “She used to go out to get us food, and sometimes she’d come back with only have something for me, and she’d say she was so hungry she ate hers on the way home. You’d be surprised how long I fell for that.”

Rhys didn’t know what to say to that. It felt like he was getting a glimpse of a very different person than the one he’d left sleeping on her jacket by the campfire, and he wasn’t sure Fiona would appreciate him seeing it. Her words at the Atlas facility came back to him: that’s more than just my friend up there, jackass. Beneath all the bluster and the sharp tongue and the pointed shoulder pads beat a very big heart.

Caught up in another memory, Sasha grinned again, the gun temporarily forgotten. “Oh, but we used to run this con as kids…” Her eyes lit up as she told the story, and she adopted a theatrical tone of voice. “We’d convince someone we were the daughters of a rich couple, that we’d got lost or run away or been kidnapped and if they just took care of us for a couple days, our parents would be so grateful they’d definitely give a handsome reward.”

Pleased with herself, she looked at him, so infectious Rhys found himself smiling back.

“Really? That worked? People bought that?”

“Oh, all the time. We’re very good.” Her eyes widened innocently, she clutched at his sleeve, and when she spoke her voice was an uncharacteristic simper. “It’s really scary here, Mister, and I know we should’ve stayed in the car like Mom and Dad said, but we’ve never been off Eden-5 before, we just wanted to see, and then there were all these scary men, and—” Rhys motioned with one hand to cut her off. “Okay, please stop, that’s kind of creepy.”

She laughed, her voice her own again, and dropped his sleeve. “Worked like a charm, most of the time. For a few days we’d get a roof over our heads, hot meals, maybe even beds, and then mysteriously, a few days before our parents were set to return, we’d take off in the night with some food and whatever we could stuff in our pockets.”

Hearing ‘hot meals’ listed as a childhood luxury added another brick to the monument of existential guilt that Rhys had been constructing the entire time he’d be on Pandora. He thought about himself as a kid, tried to imagine sneaking out a stranger’s window with a handful of stolen silverware, and found it impossible to return Sasha’s smile.

“Sasha, don’t take this the wrong way, but that sounds crazy dangerous,” he pointed out.

Her expression turned cold. “Starvation is dangerous.”

She lifted the gun and fired again, and as the bottle shattered, Rhys mentally added another brick.

“Right, yeah, of course, you’re right, sorry, I didn’t mean...” He rubbed his neck again. “Just… I’m really glad you two… you know...” he finished lamely.

“Didn’t meet some grisly fate at the hands of a child-abducting monster?” Sasha raised an eyebrow, but her irritation dissipated. “Fi had a good sense for danger. But most people treated us pretty well, actually. I guess they thought they wouldn’t get much of a reward if we told our parents bad things.” Lowering the gun again, she rested one hand fondly on her bare midriff. “One woman made the best chocolate cake I’ve, like, ever had. We stayed with her for nearly a week.”

“Did you ever think about telling the truth? Maybe—”

Sasha laughed again, but with a bitterness that told him he’d just said something very stupid. “Maybe what, they’d let us stay out of the goodness of their hearts?”

Sensing there was no correct answer to that question, Rhys looked down, grinding a hole in the sand with the toe of his boot.

“Being nice doesn’t change the fact that they were in it for the money,” she said coldly, the anger that always simmered inside her bubbling to the surface. “That’s why everyone does everything. No one cares about a couple of sad Pandoran orphans. Even Felix only kept us around long enough to steal ten million dollars.”

She punctuated it with a bang, but for the first time her shot missed. She fired again, and hit the rock face instead. Growling in frustration, she jerked her arm like she was about to throw the gun to the ground but thought better of it at the last second, then rubbed her eyes with her free hand instead.

Rhys looked at the distance between them, half of him wanting to reach out and the other half pretty sure she’d break his arm if he did. He settled on taking a step closer.

“He must have cared, Sasha,” he said gently. “He wouldn’t have hired Athena if he didn’t.”

But Sasha only glared at him, eyes fierce and furious. “Why are you defending him? You didn’t even know him.”

“I’m just trying to—” “I know what you’re trying to do!” she snapped. “I know what Fiona’s trying to do! It doesn’t help, okay?!”

This time her aim was perfect; she eliminated the two bottles she’d missed earlier, and the silence that settled afterwards felt louder than the gunshots.

And then she sighed, her shoulders drooping along with the gun.

“I’m not ready to stop being angry yet,” she said, so quietly he almost missed it.

“Well…” Rhys inched closer to her, though he dutifully kept his hands to himself. “Not that I make the rules, or anything, but I’m pretty sure that’s allowed.”

The corner of her mouth twitched, near enough to a smile that he felt a surge of pride.

“Well. Good.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and gathered herself. “The thing is, he knew something was wrong halfway through and he didn’t tell us. It doesn’t matter what his reasons were, that’s stupid. That’s how these jobs go south. You can’t keep secrets like that.”

Her words wiped away the satisfaction he’d felt a moment ago, replacing it with something heavy and unpleasant in the pit of his stomach.

He hugged his arms across his chest and looked away from her, nodding vaguely. “Yeah...”

Lost in her own thoughts, Sasha took no notice of his sudden reticence. Instead she pointed to the target, where one lone can remained standing, already half-crumpled from whomever had emptied it.

“One left,” she said, with a bit of forced chipperness. “You wanna try again?”

Rhys turned his head towards her in surprise, arms still folded. “Um… but I…”

“Yeah, yeah, glitch, whatever,” said Sasha, waving one hand flippantly. “You fixed it, right?”

“Yep, that… is what I said I did, isn’t it?” Idiot, scolded a voice in his head that sounded too much like Fiona’s. He stared at the gun, his left hand frozen mid-way towards reaching for it. “I just, ah…”

“It’ll be fine,” she insisted. She held the gun out towards him, the barrel was pointing back at herself, and grinned wryly. “Maybe just do it… you know… naturally this time. No cheating.”

“Yeah…” He took the gun in his left hand and held it down at his side, his mechanical arm still clutched as tightly to his chest as he could keep it.

Once again his heart seemed to be doing double time, drowning out everything else. His mouth felt dry. He looked down at the gun, slippery in his clammy palm, and then up at Sasha, her wide green eyes trusting and oh-so-tempting in the darkness.

He could tell her, right now, and maybe she’d understand. Maybe it wouldn’t change anything, maybe she’d appreciate the honesty, maybe she’d even, miraculously, have some idea that helped, somehow, some suggestion that made it a little bit easier to live with a not-so-metaphorical devil on your shoulder, whispering in your ear.

Or maybe she’d hate him like she hated Felix. Maybe she’d look at him like she had earlier tonight, fear and distrust and a renewed bone-deep resentment for everything Hyperion. Maybe she’d want nothing more to do with him. The possibility was more frightening than everything else on Pandora.

He knew what Jack would tell him to do—maybe that was reason enough to do the opposite.

“Sasha…” Rhys started, but his voice died, and he had to try again. “Listen, Sasha, there’s something—”

But a piercing shriek cut him off before he could finish. He and Sasha turned in time to see a rakk perch right on Sasha’s chosen rock, its enormous wings sending the last can clattering to the ground.

“Oh come on,” whined Rhys.

“Shoot it!” Sasha yelled, and then, when he remained frozen, “Rhys!”

With an awkward cry of his own, he raised the gun and fired. The rakk was a much larger target than a bottle, and he was fairly certain he hit it, but it only shrieked again and lifted off of the rock. “I... think I just made it angry.”

“Oh, for…” Sasha yanked the gun out of his hands. “Give me that!”

It only took Sasha two shots to down the rakk, its body tumbling out of the air to land a few feet from them in a cloud of dust.

Rhys grimaced as he looked at it, crumpled on the sand. “God, this planet, it is just non-stop. Seriously.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “It’s just one stupid rakk, it’s—”

But she stopped short at the sound of another rakk cry, further in the distance, and a rapidly approaching black spot on the horizon.

“Okay,” she said, “time to run.”

Her open mouth split into a grin, and Rhys gaped at her. “Are you enjoying this?”

Sasha only shrugged. But she grabbed his hand in hers before she took off, and as he was pulled along for the ride, moral dilemma forgotten, Rhys felt himself grinning too.

#rhysha #tales from the borderlands #rhys the company man #sasha the kid sister #oodlyenough i write fic

33 notes · View notes

adrift-in-writing · 7 years

Text

Going Beyond - Day Five (Respect)

Read on AO3

Falling | Pedant | Rattle | Saccharine

Author’s Note: This chapter is longer than I initially anticipated.

______________________________

Somehow and somewhere in one of the older Overwatch training facilities, Lena had wanted to prove herself to Amélie that she’d be more than capable of keeping up with a hypothetical kill-count if they ever worked together. That, and it was to see how much she improved over the years. She wanted to prove she really was as fast as people made her out to be, even if it meant trying to claim an empty reward that was no longer relevant.

Though the facility itself was rather in shambles in some parts, overall the Watchpoint was still functional to an extent. Fresh water still ran when needed, lights came on when it was needed, doors still opened, and the automated systems in general all worked properly. Even an outdated version of Athena was up and running, albeit it was not obeying the common commands it was assigned due to the command center being decommissioned.

They had wandered the halls for a bit, searching for a shooting range of sorts. Naturally, every single Watchpoint was interconnected globally; if one person participated within the training sessions, it’s likely they could have encountered their friend on a completely different side of the planet and battle them should they desire.

“How much further are we going?” Amélie had asked, for she was quite tired with having to walk long distances. They were getting side-tracked by all the nostalgia from Lena’s own whims.

To calm her, the smaller Brit assured her they weren’t too far. “I just gotta take a look at one other thing, then we’ll go straight there!”

She knew that dilly dallying wouldn’t do them much, so Lena had picked up the pace by blinking to her final destination: her old room. It was out of the sake of revisiting a small memory of course, but much of her belongings were still there. After all, Overwatch was not given the opportunity to pack up and go easily.

A picture frame of when she was merely 15 years old still stood on the lonesome side-table, and a now deactivated accelerator recharge station sat over in the corner.

Through these empty halls, Lena had felt like they were visiting her home away from home. For Amélie, it felt a little worrisome that they were here alone. It concerned her that this place was allowed to stand. What if potential thieves or looters came in?

Lena returned after a few minutes, carrying with her a small stack of photos. She placed it within her satchel bag that Amélie agreed to carry along, and cautiously stowed the photos away.

After some while of searching - and a bit of playful behavior by Tracer along the way - they had found the training facility. In stark contrast to the sleek and clean hallways, the facility was darker, and dust had settled and encrusted some bits of the terminals.

Because Lena had known Overwatch and how things operated in these terminals, the sniper proceeded into the course first. With a push of a few buttons, the young girl kicked in one of Athena’s old programmings so that she could join Amélie.

From that point on, they had to be identified as Widowmaker and Tracer only, to simulate and immerse themselves if the situation was ever real. What was once a dark room within the training course now became something...else.

Blending in a mixture of battlefield manipulation, room expansion, and overall simulated reality, the training grounds now became an entirely different world.

It wasn’t just the room that changed, for Tracer was now wearing standard issue Overwatch attire. Widowmaker was due a cosmetic change, but the program failed to register Amélie as a member. A practical shooting range was deployed, and a large holo-board filled with scores from international agents unveiled itself.

At the top sitting in the #1 spot was Captain Ana Amari, followed by McCree in a few extra points or so, Strike Commander Morrison in third position, Gabriel Reyes in fourth, Genji in fifth, and none other than Tracer in sixth position. Several other members not familiar with Lena were beneath her, but she didn’t bother with them.

The two looked at each other, and Tracer gave a big smile to Widowmaker, who in return had a rather blank stare. “I want you to give it your best, yeah?”

“Oui (Yes). Expect nothing less.”

Tilting her head, the young girl chuckled and nodded. “Try and beat me.”

With a nod, Widowmaker affirmed it. “Give it your all, ma amour (my love). I will do the same.”

Before she knew it, Lena blinked right into her personal space. She didn’t flinch, but she what she was not expecting was a quick little peck on her cold lips.

“Kiss of good luck. You’ll need it if you wanna beat me then!” Once more, Lena had proclaimed it while snickering. “G’luck, luv~!”

Scoffing, Widowmaker turned her attention to what was now in front of her: a countdown to when the practice would begin. In approximately 30 seconds, holographic projections - produced by hardlight technology - would continuously spawn non-lethal robotic target dummies for them to take down.

Amélie took a long and deep breath, now scanning the scoreboard. She promised to end up in first place, but even then she could simply beat Tracer. By then, Lena had taken her position and stretched her legs, bouncing up and down to warm herself up.

Pulsefire pistols at the ready, the young Brit was determined, and even the aura of her giddiness was remarkably visible. Past this point, she had to treat Amélie more like a teammate than a significant other, and vice versa.

“5...4...3...2...1...” The timer ticked while Athena counted down the numbers. “Begin.”

The countdown now changed to a timer set for a mere 5 minutes, and the score showed 0 to 0 for both.

A swarm of mindless bots appeared in a flash. As if by instinct, Lena dashed around and began firing while Amélie scoped in, wasting no time on aiming more than a second.

Every target Tracer was going after was immediately struck down by Widowmaker’s bullet. One by one, they cracked and disappeared into the void of programs only to respawn at a later point. Though it would not be long before the young adventurer would catch up as she kicked it into high gear. For every one move Widowmaker made, Tracer had to make two.

Like a ballad of beautiful violence, gunshots, distinct swishes, and the occasional explosion filled the air. Amélie kept her calm, simply planting bullets into the robotic heads and moving onwards to the next target. If it was a group, she would deploy one of her venom mines and quickly finish them off with her Widow’s Kiss assault mode.

The scoreboard showed that the sniper was now in a 20-kill lead - or roughly 200 points - but Tracer was closing the gap. Every dash equated a few squeezes of her pistols. Holograms of those robots ended up disappearing as quick as they appeared, and it really looked like the young girl would get the lead. The first pulse bomb was thrown out, and it eliminated a grouped up crowd of five bots. There seemed to be no sign of exhaustion coming from Lena, but even Amélie knew she was pushing herself.

Like a light show, the arena became something along the lines of blue streaks blinking all around the battle. Though her accuracy was of no concern, it was her reaction times that mattered more in the moment. Widowmaker would fire, but she would end up missing because in the split second alone, Lena had already confirmed her kill. Suddenly, the gap became closer and closer.

Widowmaker simply could not keep up at this rate. She moved strategically around the arena, but never moved in comparison to Tracer. but just as Lena was behind by two simple kills, her accelerator short-circuited. Next thing she knew, Lena stumbled and fell to the ground, combat rolling to ensure she wouldn’t lose momentum.

“Agh! Dammit!” Lena had cursed herself in the moment, but she kept her determination high and moved onward.

Without her accelerator, Lena was in a bit of a snag. She wasn’t nearly as fast, and Widowmaker saw it as an advantage on her end. It was then she had grappled upwards in the air just to show off. One bullet made its mark, and another headshot came to pass all while she was in the air.

Two minutes passed in the time they had already spent in the training room. A score of 120 to 116 in Amélie’s favor seemed to be a new record at this point in time, beating out Ana’s old record of 112 in two minutes.

There was no banter between them, for they were too focused on trying to constantly one-up each other.

Things escalated from here on out. More bots showed up in increasingly larger volumes, and it became a lot more harder for Widowmaker to eliminate them all without having to leave some behind. Lena’s accelerator came back up and allowed her to move as she once did, but it would repeatedly sputter and fail every few seconds.

Perhaps that was because of the overexhaustion of the functionalities, but if push had come to shove even if this was just a friendly competition, Tracer would do it. After all, the room still kept her anchored in time in case of critical malfunctions. There was no holding back - like Tracer had promised initially to Widowmaker.

Those two more minutes passed by increasingly quicker than anticipated, and now the final minute to win the match was here.

Rather than continue on with an onslaught of bots, there were only a maximum of five being presented every few seconds. The scoreboard now was 353 to 331, a massive 22 point lead for Widowmaker. Lena had gained an upper hand for the second minute leading in with 265 to 247, but her accelerator kept failing at each turn. Thus, her lead was lost.

One minute became thirty seconds. By these final moments, Lena and Amélie were increasingly exhausted from overextending their strength. They breathed heavily, and it was harder to hold their weapons the more they continued.

The sniper was exhausted, that much was true, but she didn’t nearly exert as much power as the young girl before her. Truth be told, she was very impressed that a person with such a small stature had that much energy to keep up. Perhaps...?

For the final set, only three bots showed at one point, but they were in rapid succession. Though it was seemingly guaranteed for the sniper to win, it was nevertheless Lena would give all that she had in swiftly eliminating those three bots.

As soon as the first group was digitally reconstructed by the hardlight tech, Tracer madly dashed and eliminated them in quick succession, giving little to no time for Widowmaker to react. Upon those bots falling, the next set arrived, and so did the fifth pulse bomb from Lena.

But she was getting a little bit careless. Tracer would occasionally just go on ahead to the next stack of mindless targets while she left one alone, and that would be one Amélie would pick off, but the lead Amélie once held was now just two points away from being lost. There were about ten more seconds left on the board, and the scores were now 359 to 358.

Widowmaker took aim at the next group of three, making only one kill while Tracer took home two. Their scores were now tied up, and it seemed like Lena would be able to take it...until her accelerator crashed once again. She groaned audibly to the point where it almost seemed like she was about to swear.

The very last training target appeared right in the middle of the field. Lena took notice of it and swallowed hard, but she wouldn’t let Amélie take it. At the range she was in, there’d be no way she could land a hit. It was right in the sniper’s sights, and she was scoped in for the final point.

But she didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, she watched as her love was running furiously at it while spraying her pulsefire pistols at it. There was a smile - and a genuine one - when Tracer managed to break the tie with 360 to 361.

Practice was over. Widowmaker had lost on purpose, but she didn’t seem to care. More or less, she did it so Tracer wouldn’t be so bitter over it. After the simulations ended and the arena had reverted back to a simple black room, Lena fell to her knees, taking off her goggles and chuckling at her victory. Her accelerator chugged along, turning itself on again. The blue glow on it had been much paler and less radiant, and overall the juice was nearly depleted.

“I win!” The young Brit could be heard speaking weakly. Her breathing was a bit shallow from running and overexerting herself, but it was all worth it.

Amélie’s visor moved itself out of her eyes, and she casually sat down with Lena. “So you did,” She smiled and had a warm smile on her lips. “Outstanding, chérie (sweetheart/dear).”

With a breath of relief, Lena eased her muscles and lurched forwards. Her body had flopped in the direction of Amélie, and the woman responded by holding onto her.

“I did good, didn’t I?” Her voice had muffled off of the catsuit she was buried in.

Rest assured, the woman had nodded her head in agreement and gave Lena one tender kiss on her forehead. “Only because you pushed yourself harder than I did.”

Lena glanced upwards and blinked a few times. “...Whatcha mean?”

The sniper’s warm smile became something more of a comforting one, and she cocked her head to the side. “When we tied, I had all the opportunities to fire. But, I didn’t. The reward for me was something...better.”

For a moment, Lena spent some time registering the thought before swallowing and snickering. “Your love for me overrode your pride, then?”

Correct she was, and Amélie nodded once. “And in that moment, I saw not a sweet, foolish girl...”

The woman leaned into Lena’s left ear and softly spoke into it. “You are now, to me, a sweet girl.” Her head moved back, so now they were facing each other. “No longer foolish. No longer...annoying.”

In a flash, Lena lurched forward some more so now she had made Amélie fall on the floor. She started smooching the cheeks of the cold woman rather ecstatically, and Amélie in return laughed - her first actual laugh that felt quite nice to her. The woman’s hair became displaced, strands moved out of their proper position and drooped over Amélie’s temple.

“That’s the best compliment I’ve ever gotten from ya, luv!”

After her barrage of kisses swiftly ended, Lena got off of Amélie and went back to sitting down. “Best day of my life hands down!”

Amélie moved her locks of hair out of her face for the time being and stood up. “I would very much like to get out of this place,” she said. “Not very comfortable. That, and I’m a bit thirsty.”

Come to think of it, even Lena was weary of this training facility now. She scanned the scoreboard, now with her name moving from 6th position to the newly 2nd place - and Amélie being in 3rd - she stood up and happily agreed.

“Could crash in my bunker if ya want?” Her hand hovered over her accelerator, and immediately her watch indicated the accelerator was running on less than 6.4% life. “I need to at any rate.”

Nodding, Amélie picked up her gun and the satchel from earlier, slinging the latter over her shoulders. “Is there, by any chance, food as well?”

Grinning, Lena blinked forward to the exit as the doors opened up. “I’m sure we could find some nutritious stuff or somethin’ ‘round here. All the natural ingredients are probably way past expiration.”

Together, the two walked out of the training facility, keeping close to each other. From that point on, Amélie escorted Lena to her room and went by herself to search for rations, for she had more energy to do so. They wouldn’t leave the facility until later...

Much, much later.

#Widowtracer Week #Widowtracer #Widowmaker #Tracer #Overwatch #Overwatch fanfic #Lena Oxton #Amelie Lacroix #Character: Tracer #Character: Widowmaker

16 notes · View notes