In that calm before the storm

[vata]

Who| Sombra and Locus
What| post-timeskip conversations
Where| Locus' apartment
When| before everything goes to heck
Warnings/Notes| NA/ will add as necessary

[It's late when she shows up. Higher chance he'll be home, lower odds they'll be interrupted— though Sombra usually operates at night anyway. Half the time it's a wonder she gets any sleep at all.

A few knuckles at the door, waiting patiently. All that vibrant blue gone, and in its place the violet ensemble and circuitry Sombra always used to roam freely in. No presents, no warnings or apologies from the starting line: if he wants to see her— if he's willing— she wants that to be the deciding factor. Nothing else.

Part of her wonders if he'll even recognize her like this.]

Comments

[agnominal]

I don't care.

[ Should he let her go on? It seems clear enough by now that there's no real protest to this, nothing that says either of them will think the better of it. And yet he's already botched this once before, hasn't he?

There is that fear, however brief, that quickened rabbiting of his heart under her fingers, before he leans lower. Closer. ]

[vata]

[She considers telling him it was only a joke - all that conviction and sincerity in his voice burrowing in under her skin even before his pulse jumps. Before he leans in.

It makes her forget why she'd opened her mouth in the first place, attention tipping upwards, opposite hand sliding to his cheek. A mirror to Sam's movements, a promise she isn't about to disappear on him regardless of old instincts. Ten years she's been running.

Maybe it's time to admit how tired she is of letting everything go.]

[agnominal]

[ The gap closes.

They've shared more than this, when they were younger, and it is like that night on the beach and yet not. They'd been daring one another further, refusing to back down, not this inexorable pull against sense and reason and plans and schemes. She doesn't taste of tequila, this time.

But it is sweetly familiar all the same, as his lips crush against hers, and the hand over hers dips low to cup at her back and bring her closer.

No. No letting go, now. ]

[vata]

[His fingers sink lower, hers already gripping him fiercely— and she thinks she should have told him sooner. Thinks maybe she already did, struck by the briefest ghost of what it'd been like when they were in the nightmare together. The last time she'd held onto him so tightly. The last time she refused to leave him behind.

This time it's not about survival, not about making sure he survives. He's learned through Taylor and Washington how to stand on his own feet, no desperate urge pressing him into someone else's shadow. Little changes that have built up over time to fill in the cracks left behind by old wounds.

He doesn't really need her anymore.

Which is the best reason for her to stay.]