the sun was in my eyes (overwatch | ana/widowmaker)

[fiachairecht]

the sun was in my eyes. overwatch, ana/widowmaker. amélie searches for affection, ana is too willing to give. 1.3k words, rated m.

Ana comes back to awareness slowly, letting the bright summer light filtering over her closed eyelids and the steadily rising hum of the cicadas outside slowly pull her up from the depths of unconsciousness. She's lying on something soft — not where she'd fallen, then, on the Avignon cobblestones — and she knows without looking that she's being watched.

Ana keeps her breaths shallow, feigning sleep as she focusses all other senses on the room around her, trying to piece together as much as she can. Trying not to dwell on the painfully familiar flashes of blue that had crowded the edges of her vision before the mine underfoot had shattered.

She knows who she'll see when she opens her eye. She just wishes she knew what that meant.

"You're awake." Amélie's voice, for all it's been flattened past most recognition. "I remember what you taught me still."

Caught, Ana opens her eyes. She's in bed, the small room sparsely decorated yet warm nonetheless, windows open wide to the Provençal countryside. Her sidearm and pouch of grenades are both gone, but she's still dressed in the loose trousers and blouse she'd been wearing in Avignon. Amélie is tucked into an overstuffed armchair in the corner, gaze fixed outward to the pale rise of Mont Ventoux in the distance.

It's the most domestic scene Ana has found herself in in nearly a decade, and the thought that it's come at the cost of Amélie abducting her is — well, it's perhaps what she deserves. Questions crowd at the back of her tongue, where are we, and why did you take me, and Amélie, please, won't you come home, but she says nothing. She lost that right when she lost their fight in Egypt.

"You were in France," Amélie says. "Were you looking for me?"

Yes and no would be lies in equal measure; for as long as Amélie has been the ghost in her empty eye Ana has imagined what their reunion would be, but she hadn't expected to find the woman — or to be found by her — today. Ana remains silent, shifts onto her side and props her cheek on her hand. "I'm here now."

"I know," Amélie unfolds herself with grace, approaches the bed with an unexpected caution. "I was tired of waiting. I think — I think Amélie missed you."

Ana inhales sharply and sits up, fighting the urge to open her arms for Amélie. "You're still her, Amélie. Your eyes—"

"Were pulled out and replaced by Talon. Like everything else." Her tone is cold, matter-of-fact, as she sits next to Ana and rests her head on her shoulder. Ana shivers at the touch, but wraps her arm around Amélie's waist anyway. "They took the feelings but not the memories. I remember now that I used to feel things with you, and I—"

"You wanted to know if you could again." The pieces fall into place easily at that, finding their home alongside the constant refrain of your fault, your fault, your fault that has never quite left her head since the day Amélie left with bloodstained hands. If she had spoken to Amélie softer, taught her to shoot better, said something to Gerard so Amélie wouldn't have felt pinned between them, asked better questions when they brought Amélie back from Talon the first time.

She's half-expecting the kiss, but it still comes as a surprise when Amélie surges up against her, hands grasping desperately at Ana's arms, their teeth clicking together uncomfortably. Ana kisses back anyway, every slow drum of Amélie's heartbeat against her own ribs a plea or a condemnation she can't help but lean further and further into.

The Shrike isn't bound by Overwatch rules about Talon agents. In Amélie's bed, with no gun between them, she's only Ana.

"You make me want to do something other than kill," Amélie whispers brokenly when she finally pulls back far enough to speak. "Ana — I don't know what this means anymore. Please?"

Ana used to have answers, even to such imprecise questions. She used to tell Amélie things, I care about you, I will keep you safe, you're becoming such a good shot. But now Amélie's eyes are wild, and tears are dripping onto Ana's hands at her waist, and Ana has nothing to say to her anymore.

She lies back as Amélie leans forward, offers no resistance as her kisses dip lower to trail along her neck, as her cold fingers unbutton her blouse. She spreads her legs to let Amélie lie between them, holds her close and sighs as Amélie's fingers press hard against her cunt through her pants.

If this is what Amélie needs now to remember her other life, Ana will give it gladly, and not think too hard about how they wouldn't have ended up here if she'd been brave enough to tell Amélie she wanted this years ago.

She has to believe it will be enough this time.

It almost feels like it could be, as Amélie's careful fingers undress her, slow as her heartbeat. Amélie kneels above her silhouetted by the late-afternoon light, and as she bites her lip and surveys Ana's naked body with a gaze that slips beneath her skin as easily as the sun slips through the window.

There's a safety between them now, the comfort of knowing that they have nothing worse left to do to each other. Ana slides Amélie's dress up just far enough that she can rest her hands on Amélie's hips, the cold, tense skin almost familiar under her fingertips, and waits.

Amélie doesn't kiss her again; she barely breathes. For long moments there is only the weight of her resting atop Ana's legs, a decade-old ghost of the woman who used to spar with Ana, who would pin her to the mats, laughing as if that alone would be enough to make them forget why they drilled.

"You brought me here for a reason," Ana said gently. Her tongue brushes her lips, and all she can taste is the memory of Amélie's kiss, waxy and medicinal and—

"Touch me," Amélie says, too quickly. "Touch me like — like you wanted to touch Amélie. Make me remember, make it—"

Right, Ana thinks she wants to say, but the word is lost as Amélie rocks down against her thigh and leans forward to capture her lips again, the hand not bracing her against the bed tangling in Ana's hair. "We're the only ones in the world up here, aren't we?" she murmurs into the space between their mouths.

Amélie nods, and the dull thud as their foreheads knock together is unbearably loud. "I had to know what it would be like. Just the two of us, like we never were before."

"Come here, then, Amélie."

"Amélie is — isn't here." But she sounds less sure of herself than Ana's ever heard, doesn't resist as Ana tugs her forward, up her body until Amélie is poised over her face, her dress still crumpled at her hips under Ana's firm hands.

"Is this what you wanted from me?" she asks, and Amélie nods a second too late, her desire something foreign that Ana has no idea how to give back.

So she settles for what she can do: tilt her chin up, pull Amélie down to her and drown in the taste of her for the first time, salt-sweet and real. She cries out once at the sensation of Ana's mouth before she settles, stills, one hand still in Ana's hair and the other against the wall.

Amélie's dress falls as Ana's tongue slides slick against her, and all Ana can see is the soft play of sun and shadow against Amélie's unnatural skin. And there, hidden, she allows herself to believe for the moment that this is all Amélie needs.