no words can save us (overwatch | mercy/widowmaker)

[fiachairecht]

no words can save us. overwatch, mercy/widowmaker. witch!angela and vampire!widow, in ten different worlds. 1k words, rated m. for scorpiod in We Die Like Fen 4.

Sometimes, it felt like nothing had changed; it would take more than the oncoming end of the world to dim the dancehall lights in Paris. And yet Amélie onstage was an undeniably inhuman creature, all sharp angles and limbs that bent impossibly far. The press called her graceful, when they got over their fear of her.

Whatever had touched Amélie was the furthest thing from grace.

It did not keep Amélie out of her bed - they feared old mortal friends more than they feared each other. But curled under satin, Angela could not stop thinking that they both deserved better.

*

The moon was long risen when Angela heard the knock at her window. Amélie hovered outside, pale and tired and looking nothing like the Widowmaker.

Angela hurried to let her in, fumbling the latch and wincing as the wooden frame creaked its way upwards. "You were on the news," she hissed as Amélie crawled her way inside.

"Not me. My kill," Amélie murmured. She slumped against Angela's chest, wound lazy arms around her neck, and kissed her with all her teeth.

Angela tangled her fingers in Amélie's hair and opened her mouth in response. Perhaps practicalities could wait for morning.

*

Omnics held King's Row, but the vampires held Earls Court, and even on the Widowmaker's arm, Angela could feel the City's eyes piercing into her bones.

"Relax," Amélie whispered, as Angela pulled her hat further down. "This is my part of the city. None will touch a witch who walks with me."

She looked lethal under the streetlights - feral, like a thing that had crawled from the shadows, and yet the pride in her voice was unmistakable.

"You're not doing this for me," Angela said. "The woman who would have done this for me is dead."

The Widowmaker just smiled.

*

She sees her all the time. More, maybe, now that Amélie's abandoned them - the Widowmaker is on the news, in every mission briefing, the centre of every crowd of brightly-dressed people. And every glimpse and not-glimpse cuts deeper than the one before.

I miss you, she says to the moon, the Eurostar, every dancing light she conjures just to have something else in her lonely barracks room. I miss you, she says, when she cuts her finger on a misplaced scalpel and sticks her bleeding thumb in her mouth.

But there is no more Amélie to say the words back.

*

Amélie's teeth sunk into her neck with ease, just like always. Angela tipped her head back, fingertips scrabbling for purchase against the wall. Her whole body responded to Amélie's bite, desire coursing through her veins. Could Amelie taste it?

"We," she said, "Amélie, I didn't lock the door."

"Do it now, witch" Amélie murmured, ripping her mouth away with effort. She didn't breathe, but her eyes were dark, an empty space that Angela longed to fill. "Now," Amélie said, "Unless..."

Her hand slipped down Angela's trousers and past her underwear with ease, and Angela decided the risk was worth it. 

*

Hearts were deceptively simple things, wrapped in velvet and nestled safe inside a lockbox. Amélie's old heart still shone every time Angela checked on it; every time, she compared it to the light in the old Amélie's eyes. Found it wanting 

"It will hurt, if you give it back." The Widowmaker's voice was rough with sleep. "It's better this way. For both of us."

If Angela turned around, the Widowmaker would be dull, pale blue skin barely covered in the sheets of Angela's bed.

"I don't think so," she said. She would never get the chance to be proven wrong.

*

The woman sprawled face-down in her cell didn't look threatening, for a vampire. Of course, Angela knew what she was capable of, but ... but.

She ran her hand over the locks, letting the magic binding them dissipate at her touch, and slipped inside the bars.

"I know you're awake," she said. "Amélie, look at me."

She knelt down, pressed a hand to Amélie's cheek and hissed as the cold burned through her. How long had it been since she'd eaten?

"Oh, Amelie," she murmured, sitting down and pulling Amelie's head to rest in her lap. "It will be better soon."

*

"Why now?" Angela asked. The box holding Amélie's heart was warm in her hands, and every part of her wanted nothing more than to give her back. She saved lives, it was all she wanted, but being responsible for Amélie's like this seemed impossible.

"I don't know," Amélie said, hands deep in the pockets of her warmup jacket. "It's just ... a feeling I have. Please."

"I can't," Angela murmured. "Put it back before you dance. It will be so beautiful."

When they found Amélie's body, twin puncture wounds dripping down her neck, she wished she'd been just a little stronger.

*

"Please don't die," Angela whispers. Tears are streaming down her face, Amelie's slack mouth cold and unmoving at her wrist. "If you die here, Amélie Lacroix, I will never forgive you."

Anything else, she could forgive. Defecting to Talon, shooting Ana's eye out - none of them needed to be the end. Death, true death, would change that, for a witch without her vampire was -

Angela without Amélie was -

She had never thought she'd find out. 

But then Amélie's lips moved, the faintest pinprick of pain as her teeth began to break skin, and Angela's sobs turned into ones of relief.

*

"You're up late."

Angela rubbed her eyes and frowned when Amélie pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Even later if you get blood in my hair and make me shower."

"I washed up," Amélie said indignantly. Her fingers trailed across Angela's shoulderblades as she circled the chair, before kneeling at her feet and staring up with shining eyes. "Because I wanted to do this."

Angela dropped her spellbook as Amélie's hands slid up her thighs, gathering her skirt at her waist. And, oh, she thought, as Amélie's mouth descended on her, this was worth staying up for.