[OPEN] You were lying on your back in the grass, counting backward from a thousand

[vata]

Who| Azúcar (Sombra) and you!
What| Hangin' out on the beach, getting drunk, being miserable and coping like an adult
Where| Sombra's section of the Habitat Deck
When| after the events of Silent Horizon
Warnings/Notes| possible talk about body horror and/or death, depending on the conversation



PROMPT A

Azúcar is harder to spot these days, following the events of the Silent Horizon. Most of her time— nearly all of it, in fact— is spent in the relative safety of her biome: a quiet shoreline, warmed by salted breezes even at night, when the lights of a nearby city's somewhat distant buildings cast a golden glow along breaking waves.

Before she'd left, she kept to the ruined industrial building hidden away behind foliage on the cliffs above the beach - that seemingly abandoned safehouse the only reason she'd constructed this illusion in the first place. Practicality over sentimentality. Now she wanders closer to the edges of the city limits where the sand bleeds off into stone and dated cement: each time she crosses the threshold, passing out of bounds for the plot given to her by the Legion, the mirage fades. It didn't used to be that this place was Dorado, the city she left behind. She thought she was immune to missing the familiar, that she was better than everyone else somehow. Less prone to that kind of vulnerability. Now she just thinks she wants to buy out someone else's biome. Expand her own with the closest Legionnaire's and get lost in the old city streets.

Ah well.

Barefoot, sporting a cutoff shirt from New Vegas and a pair of weathered, second-hand shorts, pulling a long, long drink from the bottle of tequila in hand, Sombra's perched on a rock near the city's edge, staring up into the warm glow of lit windows with a look that's entirely impossible to read. Longing, maybe.

How miserably fallible.

And so for that fact alone, every few minutes or so, she picks up another shell, another pebble, another cork from another opened bottle, and throws it out of bounds, watching it vanish from sight with a little virtual hiss.

PROMPT B

Most of her injuries have already been taken care of. No scars, no lingering damage; the Legion was thorough enough with their checkups once they peeled off the shuttle for all the follow-ups and debriefings. It's her cybernetics she was touchier about, quicker to hide: and aside from looking obviously damaged to anyone with a pair of eyes, the full depth of what that means for her is a problem too easily overlooked for the average medic, too easily (stubbornly) ignored by Sombra herself, when all she wants to do is coil around the idea of control over her own space, her own assets and resources for better— and in this case, albeit temporarily— for worse.

The skin around her spinal implants and ports is scorched from heat, reddened and raw from impact, though it's harder to notice in comparison to burned out circuitry and dulled metal.

She waits until the tide's in (all artificial programming), when it's quiet and she's alone, to slink down into the water and soak— sinking in up to her neck beneath the waves. Eyes shut, hair loose and coiled around her shoulders to light the water immediately around her, turning it a pale, luminescent blue. It's a small comfort for that incessant ache, but it's hers.

That said, the water's nice. The beach is warm, set up with a few crates full of beer and tequila and a lone parasol surrounded by laid out towels. No one would blame you for diving in with her— or maybe just setting up camp in the sand.

WILDCARD

[Want something more specific? Need a reason to sit by the ocean and chill, want to snoop around the outskirts of that ugly old industrial building instead of the very brilliant, beautiful shoreline? Feel free to run with whatever works best if you've got an idea in mind, or hit me up at ladyavali!]

Comments

[vata]

"I lied my way through it." Sombra admits, shrugging off his irritation in a show of solidarity.

It wasn't bad, but her problems are her own: handing them over to anyone else seems like a recipe for disaster. The less that's on record, the better.

"Maybe it's just me, but I don't think sitting on a couch talking about how much everything sucks with a stranger counts half as much as it does with a friend."

Consider that an open invitation, amigo.

"And it doesn't beat a view like this."

[agnominal]

"Or the company."

He'd much rather speak to someone he knows, someone he tentatively trusts. For better or worse. It doesn't make it any easier to speak of it, to form the words, but the desire is at least present.

"...I made certain never to look back. It was the only way to keep going forward, to continue fighting. If I thought on it too long, if I let myself regret any of it, I don't think I could have."

[vata]

The first comment pulls an amused little noise from the back of Sombra's throat. As for the rest—

"I get it." She doesn't. Well...she does, but in concept more than practice: now more than ever Sombra can finally comprehend the differences between her own struggles and firsthand, agonizing genocide. The body count in her closet? It doesn't stack up.

Still pretty big, though.

"Take a hard enough hit, and deciding to stop moving is a death sentence." If she'd gotten too homesick while she was underground, if she tried to look back, it would have bitten her. There's not a doubt in her mind that what Locus endured? Worse. Considerably worse.

"But you're not being hunted, mijo. That fight? It's a long, long ways away. And if you try to keep running from it you're gonna bleed out before you have a chance to make up for it. Es la verdad."

[agnominal]

"Perhaps less hunted than haunted," he murmurs, and it's supposed to be a dry joke, but there's a kernel of truth there. There is a ghost that ties all that baggage back to him, so that he feels the weight of it every time he moves. A voice he can't quite put out of his head, no matter how hard he tries to ignore it.

His head dips before he glances back towards her.

"Allies certainly help." And now that he knows where he stands, it's easier. The niggling doubt, the worry that she'll expect too much of him as a friend, is no longer there. He serves a purpose.

He can live with that.

[vata]

"So they do."

It's a shame that Amélie is so far away. Sure, they had their moments of animosity (decidedly dedicated thanks to a potent mixture of both Sombra's love of digging for a reaction and Amélie's barbed threats) but there was so little that was beyond them in their synergy - in knowing she had another piece on the board to lean on when things were tight. Now she's starting over, and that? That's delicate. Gabe is right: she should be patient.

And yet.

Stretching out her legs, Sombra angles a look right back at him that's more comfortable— has less to do with the heat of the alcohol burning in her veins and more for what's ahead. "Which means I should probably let you meet mine."

[agnominal]

Which implies she's been planning this for some time. She's got her eyes on a much longer game, and that's reassuring as much as it is disturbing. He has no desire to let himself become someone's pawn again.

But choice. Choice is a strange and wonderful thing, and he thinks he'd choose to side with Sombra, if it came down to it. Slowly, Locus nods in response.

"I'd like that."

Learning about the people she trusts and associates with will be educational, if nothing else.

[vata]

It's hard to say whether or not Locus really would like it in practice overt theory: Gabriel is...an experience by average standards. And considering how poorly he'd integrated himself into the Legion before she turned up, reputation might precede reality.

Without any apparent concern for how much he might care for it, Sombra tipsily scoots herself forward, shifting for the sake of resting her head in his lap.

"He's a soldier, like you. We've been friends for a long, long time, and he's always done right by me." Even on the Silent Horizon, he'd left for her sake— however sore she'd been in the moment, she can't disregard his reasoning. Or his loyalty.

"I trust him."

Maybe not with all her secrets, but with her life, she does. Has she ever admitted that before? Foggy as her train of thought is, she only remembers a faint glimpse of hazy blue.

"So don't let him intimidate you, se entiende? He's had a hard life. He can't help what it's done to him."

In that, they're somewhat alike, she thinks. Manipulated, unmoored— feared, even. Only where Locus' betrayal left him committed to trying to become a better person, Gabriel's death cemented his adherence to revenge.

A cause Sombra encourages about as often as she buffers against it. He can't be a machine all the time.

[agnominal]

Maybe it's the tequila, or maybe he really doesn't mind (Felix got into his space all the time, and Sombra is considerably less annoying about it) but when Sombra flops down into his lap, Locus doesn't so much as blink. This is a thing that is happening now, apparently.

Of course, Sombra had been testing borders since the Valor's Day party, hadn't she? She sees him now, maskless and vulnerable, so what more is there to shield himself with? There seems little point in it now, after she's seen so much more...

"He will not intimidate me." There's a wry certainty in that. After what they've experienced? He doubts this friend of Sombra's can hold any surprises.

[vata]

He's so sure of it, how undeterred he'll be. It's charming. Maybe that's her own arrogance finding comfort in a show of someone else's certainty, but Sombra doesn't pretend to be a selfless altruist.

—oh no, wait, actually she does. Constantly these days.

"I'm glad to hear it." Inhaling once, she curls herself in just a bit tighter, lazily circling his knee with a single nail over and over again. She should walk him up to the safehouse sooner rather than later, make it easy on them both. But that'd require moving, and this is...nice. "Knew I wasn't wrong about you, Locus."

And look at that, no nicknames this time.

[agnominal]

It's noted. Usually there is some variant being thrown around, but again, he's willing to chalk it up to the drink. Which has him settled and a little fuzzy around the edges and comfortable, in a way he generally isn't. Even that tickling touch against his knee only prompts the faintest of twitches.

"Good to know I don't disappoint entirely," he replies wryly, after a moment, one heavy brow arching down at her. Like a kitten that's made itself at home in the lair of a panther, absolutely fearless in its ability to make friends and remain safe.

What's the word? Charming? That works as well as any.

[vata]

"I'd say I'm easy to please but, no es cierto."

That, at least, she can't fake. Not even in her best attempts to play innocent - and Locus? Locus is smart enough to see right through that in an instant.

"You should be proud of yourself."

[agnominal]

"I'll settle for being glad," he offers wryly. A compromise. Meeting her standards -- earning enough trust to be shown a sliver of the truth behind this game she's playing -- is not something he thinks he should be proud of.

Merely an expectation he's finally rising to. When hit rock bottom, should you really be proud of making it anywhere close to where you used to be? There was a time...

Probably not the line of thought to be taking from all of this. It makes him feel older than he is. Instead, he squints down at her.

"You're not drunk, are you?"

[vata]

"Only a lot."

Her eyes are shut, fingers having long since gone still as she breathes in an easy rhythm, clearly pleased with both present circumstances and her own permeating inebriation.

It's been a full day of drinking with nothing to eat, Locus. Enjoy what it's left you putting up with.

[agnominal]

After what they've been through, he can hardly blame her. He still does sigh, quiet and long-suffering, before letting her drift off.

It is a rather nice view, after all.

When it's clear Sombra's fallen asleep from the evenness of her breathing, Locus shifts, oh so carefully. His arms slip beneath her and cart her upwards, and she barely feels like anything at all.

But the weight of that trust? More than makes up for it.

She'll be glad to wake up in a bed, he thinks.