Chapter Text
WM: Lynx. Are you awake?
LS: Good evening Widowmaker, you’re up awfu11y ear1y. 7o wha7 7o I owe 7he p1easure?
WM: I did not sleep.
WM: & it is not exactly a pleasure. I have something I need to tell you about.
LS: So do I, as chance may be, bu7 I’d 1ike 7o reve1 in mine for a bi7 1onger, so I’11 1e7 you go firs7.
WM: An incident occurred yesterday. & after deliberation I am starting to think I h&led it rather
WM: Poorly.
LS: You? Making a foo1 of yourse1f?
LS: Do go on.
She storms into your quarters her heels hot and her fists clenched. Her slipstream could burn you, and you get to bare witness to one of these rare celestial events the only come once each thousand years: Sombra is too angry to speak.
The fact that she still needs to yell at you though is the diametrically opposed force that leads to you following her to your block, and produces intermittent growls of frustration as she tries to form words but can’t. Somehow, you are back here again, still trailing behind, reverted to an adolescent once more. The sullenness from your friend clown might as well be the admonishing honks of your lusus for all the sense of indifference they invoke in you.
Because, at the moment, you are unrepentant. You are the stone that the river parts around, at least outwardly, and you can only hope that if you exude an aura of disimpassioned self-control, you and the mask will eventually become one, and the confusion fluttering in your chest will subside until there is no reason at all to fear that Sombra might see it. If you wish to soar with the eagles, you must pretend to be one. A wise troll said that once.
She’s still too pissed to glance at you for more than a few seconds. Instead she groans, spreads her arms, and falls backwards into your recuperacoon.
The slime is far too viscous to splash over the edge, but it does jiggle when the clown deposits her meager body into its contents, sopor quivering over its shallow bottom as it allows her to sink the remaining few inches. This and Widow’s Kiss are the two luxuries you’ve allowed yourself in your life as an imperial exile. Your first day as a pirate, liberated under the glorious leadership of Doomfist the Successor, you shivered through daymares in the spare cocoon you’d claimed, huddled as you were among dozens of sleeping trolls. There is no hemospectrum among Talon, at least outwardly—rank is garnered by killcount and living long enough to survive to the next night. So new recruits, runaways not long from Alternia, would cluster together in the hull until the most dangerous profession in the universe took the few wipes it needed to whittle you down. That first day you longed for your old hive, for the indent of sopor in the floor you could sink into and breath in comfortably—instead, you had the rattling snore of Sombra beside you as she blew snot bubbles in her slime.
Now, she throws her arms over her eyes. She can’t be that mad at you—otherwise she’d be back in her own block instead of yours—so you wait, facing as much of the wall as you can while still keeping her in your sights. She has always been your anchor to this place and, for a very long time, your only one. You do not know how to manage her animosity, nor the confliction inside you: the regret that seems to be overpowered by the satisfaction. She throws her arms in the air, unrest causing her to thrash upwards, glaring at you as she says-
LS: I am wai7ing 1croix.
WM: Sorry, I am having difficulty figuring out where to begin.
LS: How abou7 a7 7he beginning? A1ways seems 7o work for me.
WM: I am starting to see why Zarya hates you.
LS: F1a77erer.
WM: The “beginning” is not as easy a place to pinpoint as one would think.
WM: I don’t know where it began, or became out of control. I believed I had a h&le on things.
LS: Rea11y? I didn’7.
WM: Shut up.
WM: Besides, you do not yet even know what I am talking about.
LS: I can 7ake a guess.
LS: Why don’7 we ro11 back 7he 7ape. Wha7 were you doing yes7erday morning?
WM: That’s not as far back as you’ll need if you actually want to underst& what is going on.
LS: Ame1ie dar1ing, I’ve been fo11owing 7his drama for sweeps.
LS: So. Yes7erday morning?
WM: Uhg. Fine.
WM: I was looking for Sombra on the lower decks. When she doesn’t want to be found there is no hope of it, but if she’s merely out causing trouble she’s not too hard to spot.
LS: Wha7 did you wan7 wi7h her?
WM: You know, I don’t even remember.
WM: It seems so trivial in retrospect.
LS: I 7ake i7 you found her 7hen? 7his wou1d be a very shor7 s7ory if no7.
WM: I did. I thought to look in Reaper’s room, since bothering him is one of her go-tos when she’s bored.
WM: I wasn’t even thinking. I just
WM: Went in.
“I can’t believe you-! You-!” She slams her fists down in the slime. It slowly creeps back over her hands, cautiously returning to its natural shape. “What even was the point of that? There’s like, literally nothing to be jealous of!”
You stare at her, uncomprehending. But then the line is made in your thinkpan, one dot to the other, and exasperation to the point of disgust wells in up inside you. She still thinks you’re flushed for her. Still. You have known each other since you were six and she still thinks-
If not for the lingering thrill and your undecided qualms, you might be able to muster up the strength to be disappointed in her.
“Sombra,” you tell her, for not the first nor the last time, “you are an idiot.”
WM: & I was greeted with the sight of Sombra & Reaper a hair’s breath away from fucking each other.
LS: Oh.
LS: Oh shi7.
“I’m an idiot?” she scoffs. “I’m not the one who can’t tell the difference between horny and hatesex. And even if we were going pushers with each other it wouldn’t matter because you and I aren’t even-! You never-!” She throws a glob of slime at you. It doesn’t take much effort to dodge it. “Uhg! Why do you do this now when things are going so well?”
“You’re not pitched for him Sombra,” you say, and you’re surprised at how calmly you say it. You can feel the precipice of change, that you are approaching something and you have to hold back to not get too excited.
“What do you know about that?” A snarl twitches at the corner of her nose. “Okay so we’re morails, big deal. Quadrants change. It’s not like I’m moving in on someone else’s turf, Boss is as cloistered as an adult jade.”
“You’re not pitched for him,” you go on. “You’ve never been pitched for anyone.”
LS: How c1ose are we 7a1king here? Was 7here a pai1 nearby?
WM: About that.
WM: But to answer your question, pretty damn close. I don’t think it was planned though, more a heat of the moment you’re-annoying-me-so-bad-I-need-to-fuck-you-right-now-otherwise-I-might-just-kill-you soft of thing.
LS: 7ha7’s odd1y specific. Have you been 7hinking a 1o7 abou7 7his?
WM: Of course I fucking have, think before you speak.
LS: Ah, righ7.
WM: They were just…all over each other, practically out of their pants & I was just so gogdamn pissed.
WM: After everything I did to sort things out after the reunion, getting them to a point where we could actually be all in the same room again, & they were going to ruin things with some fucking quadrant-kitty-corner one night st&.
WM: She doesn’t hate, she just wants to be hated. You know that right?
WM: & I knew if I let them go through with it, they’d try to validate it with a relationship & then everything would just be
WM: Over.
WM: It’d fall apart just like she always lets it do.
LS: So wha7 did you do?
WM: Pervert.
LS: May I remind you 7ha7 *you* invi7ed *me* 7o 7his 1i771e advicoria1 ar7ic1e recep7or.
WM: I know I
WM: It was just so. Stereotypical.
WM: It’s the sort of thing a five-sweep-old makes up when fantasizing about breaking up an unstable pair.
WM: Remember I mentioned there was a bucket? It wasn’t for pailing. It was full of water, I think someone had put it there to stop a leek.
WM: I wasn’t really thinking tactfully at the time, may have been seeing a little fuchsia.
LS: Widowmaker.
LS: You didn’7.
WM: It appears I did.
It only takes a moment for the hurt on Sombra’s to morph into fury. She rises, hair still dripping, water running from her scalp and tearing through her paint where she’s forgotten to seal it. She jabs a finger at you. “And what the fuck would you know about that, Amelie?”
It’s a question she asked you a mere minute ago, but now with so much more venom to it. For some reason your ignorance tunnels sees fit to keep opening itself, and the premade words are reveal themselves, fresh and ready to be served.
“We have known each other nearly our whole lives,” you say, because the truth has never hurt anyone, right? “You’re always aiming for the spade, Sombra. It’s like you have an addiction. I know you cannot see it from where you are, but I have been arbitrating these one-sided relationships since I found you on that beach. You may think you want to hate people Sombra, but you don’t.”
There. That’s as clear as you could ever make it. How long have you wanted to say it, how long have you been drudging behind the scenes, trying to make her happy?
You’re not sure it matters, since she’s certainly not happy now. She walks forward, tripping on the pool’s raised lip. The first thing you did when you earned your own block was drag up that little kiddie pool, dumping in as much sopor as possible and not caring about volume-displacement as you finally sunk in. The warm embrace felt like coming home. That’s what you’d always liked about your pool, the ability to pretend you were underwater, the privilege to sit back and just breathe. It was an old comfort, like your gun, like Sombra. But the Sombra you have now isn’t yours anymore, not really.
She jabs a prong in your sternum. “You think because you admit to stepping on my life that makes you some kind of expert? It makes you a quadrangular glass nose-pressing creep!”
You flinch. It surprises you, and your back is suddenly against the wall. “I am trying to help Sombra. For once, listen to me: you have an inability to maintain or even properly begin pitched feelings-”
“You think I don’t already know that?” It’s nearly daylight by the according to the ship’s suncycles and she must be waking your neighbors by now but for some reason you’re suddenly more frightened than concerned. Not of her but- “You think I don’t fucking notice? I’m inside my own gogdamn head Widow, I know I’m fucked up, I know I can’t make anything work and I don’t need you telling how I’m so broken I can’t even have feelings.”
She slams her fists against your vascular cage. It might hurt if you bones were not made tide and trench. You are close enough to her now to see it’s not just the afterimage of pipe water making her face wet.
“That’s why this had to work!” she says, punctuating each word with a forceful punch to your chest, turning the ineffective strikes into a steady tattoo. “Because if it was going to work with anyone it was going to be with him. Don’t you see? He’s the closest I’ve ever come to it and you just went along and-”
She cuts herself off with a sob. Slowly, her pounding turns feeble until it comes to a stop entirely, and she presses her forehead against your chest. You think you’re starting to see now. It may be you she’s hitting, but you’re not the one she’s fighting.
Stiffly, you try to close your arms around her. Despite your long friendship and apparent closeness, you don’t think you’ve ever hugged her before. She’s gone silent again, shoulders jerking in a rhythmic and identifiable motion.
“You don’t…” she says, barely intelligible with her face shushed against you “You don’t think I’m busted, right?”
Even you—famous serial killer of the Outglut who just spent the past few minutes dumping on your friend for how rough her loathelife has been for you—isn’t cruel enough to push on now.
“Of course not,” you say, awkwardly smoothing down her sopping hair. “Of course not Sombra.”
You have never hugged anyone, actually. Never had to comfort a morail, never even held a matesprit after a long night. It makes you wonder what authority you have being anyone’s auspistice; if relationships require job experience, you might as well hang your hat now.
LS: We11 7ha7 is qui7e 7he confessiona1.
LS: Why do you fee1 you hand1ed i7 poor1y 7hen? 7ha7 sounds 1ike every auspis7ice’s we7 dream, no pun in7ended.
WM: That isn’t what I have regrets about.
She kisses you. And you wish feeling were hats because then you could just toss yours out the airlock and not think about them until it’s all over. But they are not hats, and you spend every minute of the messy kiss hating yourself and the mistakes you’ve made. But you let her. She presses up on her toes and you’re trapped between her and the wall while she draws her arms around your neck. You’re petrified and you keep on letting her until she presses against you so vehemently your thinkpan snaps back to reality.
You push her back. Too forcefully, and you immediately regret it even though your body is already compounding in relief. Because it takes a second for the surprise on her face to twist into rejection, and in that second you think you may be the worst person in the universe.
“Sombra,” you say, to parlay, to mediate between her and your inability to find something to follow it as she heads toward the door. “Sombra you can’t just replace him with me.”
“Yeah,” she says, scrubbing tears from her cheeks. “That’s pretty obvious.”
And then she’s gone.
WM: I’m not as good of an auspistice as I claim to be. When we left Reaper’s block she was
WM: Quite distressed.
WM: I attempted to mediate back in my quarters but she wasn’t receptive. We fought for a bit.
WM: I just want to make it clear that I have never wanted to hurt her, or damage any of her relationships beyond repair. I just don’t want to see her unhappy.
LS: Yes yes you care abou7 her so on and so for7h, basic ashen p1aybook.
LS: I’m wai7ing for 7he s7inger, 1croix.
WM: She kissed me.
LS: Oh fuck.
WM: I could tell she was in a bad place so I didn’t stop her, but then she tried to take it further & I had to put my foot down.
LS: Sufferer 7his no7 where I 7hough7 7his was going.
LS: I
LS: Hm
LS: May have some7hing 7o share wi7h 7he c1ass.
WM: I do not know her whole claim to my flushed crush was some sort of abstract “I’m rubber & you’re glue” psychological trick she’s been peddling for sweeps now, or if she really was rebounding that hard. One of those options is decidedly less cataclysmic than the other, but with indiscernible mind of Sombra who knows.
LS: We11 I may be ab1e 7o shed some 1igh7 on 7ha7 mys7ery.
LS: I s1ep7 wi7h Sombra yes7erday.
WM: I am very much not in the mood Seventeen.
LS: I’m no7 joking. 7ha7’s ac7ua11y wha7 I was going 7o 7e11 you abou7 when you firs7 messaged.
WM: What.
LS: She 1ef7 righ7 before you rang. I was a 1i771e surprised she s7ayed for breakfas7, bu7 now 7ha7 I’ve heard 7his who1e accoun7, i7’s s7ar7ing 7o make sense.
WM: Lynx Seventeen if you are fucking with me right now I am going to kill you. Actually, I am going to kill you even if you aren’t fucking with me.
WM: Especially if you aren’t fucking with me.
LS: Af7er hearing abou7 a11 of 7his, I’m rea11y ra7her gra7efu1 she c1eaned up 7he s1ime before coming 7o my door. 7ha7 wou1d have pu7 qui7e 7he damper on 7he mood.
WM: Where are you Seventeen? At this moment? I am coming for you.
LS: Have you swapped off Reaper so quick1y? I 7hough7 you had equa11y s7rong conci1ia7ions for him.
LS: Or is your ashen passion for Sombra 7ha7 pungen7 7ha7 whoever she foo1s around wi7h i7 jus7 sor7 of s1ops on7o 7hem as we11?
WM would like to know the location of LS
LS: Good 7ry.
WM: But why??? Why would pail with Sombra??
LS: If I’m being hones7? For 7he same reason you didn’7.
LS: I cou1d 7e11 she was upse7 abou7 some7hing, wha7 wi7h a11 7he 7ears she was doing a poor job of hiding.
LS: You rea11y did a number on 7he poor 7hing, you know.
WM: There is a spare palmhusk next to me I have just strangulated into a pile of grubslurry while imagining it was your neck.
LS: And I didn’7 fee1 i7 wou1d be good for her 7o be a1one. So I provided some comfor7.
LS: Gran7ed I probab1y wou1dn’7 have if I’d known she was suffering 7ha7 par7icu1ar series of emo7iona1 vu1nerabi1i7ies. S1eeping wi7h her af7er she'd jus7 been ji17ed by bo7h her hear7 and her spade wou1d have been a bi7 7oo scummy, even for me.
LS: Migh7 I a1so remind you 7ha7 I didn’7 ac7ua11y *know* 7he even7s of yes7erday un7i1 our 1i771e ha1f-hour conversa7ion here.
WM: You think that lets you off the hook?
LS: Perhaps no7. Bu7 before you s7ar7 invo1ving yourse1f be7ween mine and Sombra’s priva7e affairs, perhaps 7here is a differen7 pairing you shou1d sor7 ou7?
LS: Wink wink nudge nudge.
LS: And proper1y 7his 7ime: no ambigui7ies, shame g1obes 7o 7he inside-ou7side divider.
WM: Didn’t I just try that?
LS: Wi7h a singu1ar par7ner. I7 7akes 7hree 7o make an auspis7icism work.
WM: Fine. I see your point.
WM: Though I am still going to find & kill you later.
LS: Widowmaker, every day you bring me a new de1igh7. P1ease never s7op.