Jesse is ready for the verbal blow to come. Expecting it. The understanding he gets instead throws him for a loop, and it shows on his face as he stares back at her. His poker face isn’t quite so strong tonight, either from the drinking or Ashe’s presence. More likely the latter, as he’s good enough at keeping his thoughts to himself when dealing with acquaintances.
Her mentioning his eyes seems to bring the fact that he’s projecting too much to his attention, and he pointedly looks down at the counter instead. His body stays slightly turned toward hers, though, whether he fully realizes it or not.
“Just been a while since I had anythin’ to lose. Then this place drags me in, and…” He laughs, a sound without any real amusement to it as he takes a drag of his cigarette before resting it in a nearby ashtray. Angela had never liked him smoking. He’d always laughed and pointed out that, in his line of work, it wouldn’t be the smokes that got him in the end. He’s been right so far.
“Moira’s takin’ it hard, but who can blame her? It’s not like we know where people go when they stop bein’ here.” Back home, perhaps. That’s the best-case scenario.
Moira was taking it hard. She took it hard the way that Ashe had taken such grief hard. "Moira'll fine." The woman was a rock and had dealt with a lot of adversity in her own ways, they had somehow bonded over that loathing a world that hadn't ever treated them right. "She's tough and she'll get through." She smiled wryly. "I would however, keep an eye on those experimentations of hers. I am guessing the person keeping her grounded was Angela and without her, who knows where she'll go." Jesse had kept her grounded and she'd launched herself into a full on war against the gangs until they conceded. Then she'd climbed the ladder and filled the emptiness of her losses with the money that came in. Who knew what Moira would do, and she was talking about doing it directly to others.
Though she tries not to focus so heavily on the other thing he'd said it kept nagging at her. "since I had anythin' to lose." Finally she can't keep the burning question she has to herself, so reaches for the cigarette takes a long drag to lets the smoke soothe her nerves. "You mean, since you left Blackwatch." She taps the ash into the ashtray as she quietly says that. She'd always assumed since his kidnapping that Deadlock was a forgotten family and Blackwatch was where he had wanted to be. Her tone isn't accusatory, just sad.
“Yeah. That was the first time I went out on my own.”
He can’t think of a reason not to admit it, even if he could think of several while sober. He frowns down at the glowing ember of his own cigarette where it sits, slowly burning itself down. What’d she have to be sad about? She hadn’t liked Blackwatch anyway. Would’ve thought she’d be happy being reminded of its demise and him no longer being a part of it.
“Lost Deadlock. Left Blackwatch, and then that went-” He holds up a hand and flicks his fingers out, as if to mimic an explosion with the single gesture. “Seemed simpler bein’ a rogue agent, and y’know what? It was. It was real damn simple.”
And lonely. Incredibly lonely, but which was worse—being alone, or losing the people you cared about over and over again? He’d thought about that a lot when the Recall happened. It was part of the reason he hadn’t answered it for as long as he had. That, and the lack of oversight and rules that make up a vigilante lifestyle.
“Then this place comes, and it gives you a house. A goddamn house, and you’re stuck in one town seein’ the same faces over and over again, and it’s- it’s bullshit, Ashe.”
He’s definitely drunk, his tone almost petulant as he knocks his glass against the counter for emphasis.
Ashe could never have done what he had done. She would have been too scared to. Though she approached keeping people with her from a backwards point of view, the idea of being alone scared her on a visceral level. Yanked her right back to her earliest memories of crying by the front door of a house that was too large and held too much emptiness. Being rogue never would have worked for her. She needed Deadlock like she needed air, because with them she was never alone.
He'd listed Deadlock in there, and it's reassuring in its own way. She gives voice to his own thoughts. "Sure, bein' without people is simpler, but sittin' in a bar knowin' no one in a town you are only passin' through isn't a life. Not unless you're a tumbleweed." She may not let people in very deep, but she was never happier than when she was counting the bills from a successful score and everyone was celebrating the success together; no matter how drunk and stupid they got.
She picks up her head as his drunken rant gets a little more escalated and he's talking to her, really talking and she's just listening, really listening. This town was brutal, it gave you a house and it had forced her to see him day after day, with little change. And when he'd been dead, it had been his ghost that she'd seen every night.
"...You got comfortable again." She poured a new glass, swallowing it quick and starting to feel the buzz hit her. When he slams his glass down, she stares at her own. A new line of thinking has been slowly growing inside of her over the last nearly half a year and with the alcohol taking effect and his own openness she dares to try and word it. "...I used to think..." She starts carefully but avoids his eyes as she tries to figure out how to communicate with him. "That you were like a tumbleweed, blowin' from place to place. That you'd touch down but be gone as fast, leavin' dust in your wake."
She swallows and some of her hair falls to curtain her face, to make her expression unreadable. "I believed that nothin' was enough for you." That she and Deadlock weren't enough. "And I hated you for that. And I hated myself for thinkin' I could catch you and keep you. Thinkin' you'd been makin' a fool out of me." And he had, but there is a small part of her starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, it was on both of them the damage that had been done to their relationship. "...Maybe, instead of that...maybe it's not that you were lookin' for greener grass, it's that life kept takin' you into yards only just long enough to adjust before forcin' you to move on, and you were strong enough to try and do that."
She takes another deep breath, unsure if anything she'd said was worthwhile and her fingers are shaking slightly as they hold the glass. "You've just done what you always do. You kept on livin', and hopin' for the better outcome to it all. And yet again, the world won't stay still for you. It's not bullshit, Jesse. It's your life, you're a tumbleweed lookin' for somethin' to stop you." She often talked a lot, but she really needed to get it out. "Before comin' here I didn't understand how you could ever get used to or care about people in a place that stole your entire life away. I think...I might be seein' it a little different now." Because now, she was making a home out of something that had seemed like a prison, because she had to survive and she had to not be alone.
She wonders if maybe that had been no different for him all those years ago when Blackwatch had taken him away from her and the gang. While admitting her wrongs didn't come anymore naturally than comfort, this was her trying to really hear him.
There’s no way she could know that Reyes had called him the same thing once. It twists in his chest, a sharp pain but an old one. But rather than curl back in on himself and turn away, the more Ashe talks, the more Jesse straightens up. He’s outright staring at her by the end, the whole thing less painful now but… unnamable. He doesn’t know what this bittersweet feeling is, only that it’s all-encompassing, like it’s gotten into his blood.
A tumbleweed lookin’ for somethin’ to stop you.
“… Never been that things aren’t enough for me,” he admits finally, breaking the weight of silence that had fallen over them when she’d finished. “Especially not you. Not Deadlock, I mean, not… all of that, any of it.”
He’d wanted to go back so badly. She’d been his family. It’d been his home. But by the time he had, they’d both changed too much. He couldn’t go back any more than Ashe could leave.
But it feels like, for the first time in a long time, she’s not blaming him for it. It’s a surprise how much that actually means to him. For her to understand. For her to look at him like that and see something good in what he’s been through. More good perhaps than he’s ever really seen in any of it.
"But I never hated you."
Why he feels the need to make that clear, only his drunken mind knows.
"I can't ever go back, but... wasn't ever 'cuz of you."
Ashe hadn't been the reason he'd lost Deadlock any more than Reyes had been the reason he'd lost Blackwatch. It'd only ever been him, making bad plays and putting down the wrong cards. Over, over, and over again.
He really wasn't so different from her, it just expressed itself differently in her. Her own life had been a series of bad decisions and wrong choices. For a time they'd made them side by and side and when happiness is scarce she'd latched onto it like a safety raft in a storm.
I can't ever go back. His own words sink in hard, not that she doesn't take in the fact that he had gone on to say that it wasn't about her, but it's the first part that catches up to her. When she'd first seen him after Blackwatch, that had been what she'd wanted. For him to be the prodigal soul returning home to them, so they could pick up where they'd left off. It had been a foolish and childish notion. He'd changed and so had she. In filling the gaps of his absence with anger, violence, and revenge she'd destroyed the home he'd had to come back to.
Of course they hadn't been able to go back, because the past was gone. Maybe they were robbed of it, maybe it wasn't what had been intended, but fighting against the reality had made her bitter. As usual she'd created a war where there hadn't needed to be one. Just another bad play on her part. At the time she hadn't been able to move forward either, so they were stuck in a stand off where every once in awhile the guns came out and made everything worse. The kids they were were gone and she clung to a photograph of what ifs, without ever thinking that maybe just because they couldn't go back didn't mean they couldn't go forward.
The issue then became how to move forward and was there anyway to build new positive memories, or had her lust for control and money destroyed everything she actually wanted? In the middle of becoming Calamity Ashe, she'd forgotten that she was still Elizabeth Ashe and she wasn't really sure what Elizabeth Ashe wanted, because she'd tried to destroy that part of herself to be stronger. Deerington seemed intent on trying to drag up forgotten wants and desires and forcing her to question herself. It was too hard.
"You don't gotta sugar coat it. It was 'cause of me. I changed the family, I..." She swallowed roughly, it was getting hard to not break down over things that had been slowly creeping to the surface finally daring to breach her consciousness. "I...forgot how to have fun. I..." She had become just like her Mama and Daddy and she was swimming in the only thing they had ever loved; wealth. She wants to not believe it, but a nagging feeling says she's an Ashe through and through. And like her parents, she destroyed everything that could possibly love her.
It's too raw and it hurts too much to even begin processing too deeply. Even if she wants to figure out if they could let go of the past and move in sync into the future, she's too afraid. She'll lose him like he lost Angela and she'll be trapped here alone and fighting to survive just like always and it'll only hurt more if she lets him in. She looks up at him, her eyes are wide and nervous. "I...I can't...I gotta go..." She stands up from her chair, clearing her throat because she feels ready to start crying and quickly grabs her jacket before heading towards the door. Whatever is out there in the dark streets of Deerington surely can't hurt her more than the truth coming to light in the bar.
Jesse had just wanted to sit and drink and peace, in a little microcosm of the life he’s lead thus far: living dangerously, on his own and on his own terms. So no one is more surprised than him when, after Ashe rushes out, he stumbles up to his feet.
“Goddamn it, god… damn it, Ashe-”
He about falls over the stool, and he definitely runs into a patron or several on the way out; but not a one of those obstacles will stop him when he’s got it in his mind to be somewhere. The night air, when it hits him, is pleasantly cool. It’s not autumn yet, but the promise of it is there.
“Ashe!” he shouts her name, not really sure if she’s far enough away yet to warrant how loud his voice is. Important thing is that she hears him.
She had been hoping that the night air and getting a little bit of distance, might bring her back to the comfortable territory of her unhealthy coping devices. At least being angry was something that she was used to. She had a rigid mindset, but it was what she knew. Starting to take into consideration that maybe there were other ways of thinking was downright threatening in some ways because it challenged years of her own reality. Despite Deerington cracking constantly at those edges, it didn't make her any ready for it.
She stops in her tracks when she hears him call her name, and she's surprised. He'd come after her and she hadn't been expecting it. After all, she'd assumed that he'd just return to drinking, he'd wanted to be alone in the first place after all. She wasn't sure she'd been good company. But slowly she turns around, it's not hard to see she's still a bit defensive, but she hasn't had the time to build the wall back up again.
"C'mon Jesse, I don't know what else to say... You didn't even want me there in the first place tonight, and I'm no good at reassuring anyone that it will be alright. I don't know how to help you...or make it better." No one had ever taken the time to teach her how.
He’s too drunk for this. Jesse never has the right words even when he’s really trying to (and no, easy smiles and vague advice about the inherent unfairness of the universe don’t count). But seeing Ashe look back at him, defensive as if he’s done something to hurt her somehow—it’s enough to make him want to try.
“Don’t need you to say anythin’.” He’s the one who has things to say, but the amount of whiskey he’s already had is really making it a struggle.
“You said it was ‘cuz of you. It wasn’t, and I just… I can’t let you go runnin’ off in the middle of a… a murdertown in the middle of the night with B.O.B. because you think you messed up, and…”
He’s losing steam, losing coherence, but there’s one thing he can still focus on well enough.
She's quiet for a long moment as she watches him. A large part of her brain wants to turn tail and get on that bike and drive away from there, away from the risk of letting herself care about him again. Another voice tells her, it's really too late for that anyway, and it was too late from the moment she'd held him dying in her arms. Whether she figures out how to outwardly address that is another story.
The battle inside her head over what to do wages, but ultimately she realizes she's screwed at this point. She lets out a sigh and her shoulders ease. She moves towards him and back towards the bar.
"Alright." She tries to keep her head high, but it's an effort to stay poised and strong in the moment. "Guess I could go for one more drink."
Just one is better than nothing. Jesse will gladly take it. This doesn’t solve anything, doesn’t change a thing either, and Jesse will feel extremely embarrassed about it in the morning. Right now though, all he feels is relief that Ashe won’t be off in the night, feeling all that weight pressing down on her shoulders while making her way home alone.
“You still got a bottle to finish,” he reminds her as he follows her back in. The other bargoers give him a wide berth this time.
“Don’t got to talk about anythin’ if you don’t want. Can go back to the original plan. Just drinkin’.”
Because if anything is clear now, it’s that Ashe has just as many demons as he does. More than he’d thought.
While Ashe may have said one, she knew that when he'd gotten her to agree, it would be more than that. The emotional exhaustion had caught up to her. Between all the situations Deerington had thrown at her, the demons were having a hay day with her. In the middle of that storm Jesse somehow still feels like a beacon of safety and while confusing, it also means she keeps finding ways to stay in his line of vision.
She takes her seat again at the counter, and the barkeep nods his head to her. Tucking the longer pieces of hair behind her ear so that she's not hiding behind it, she dares to glance up at him. This was the boy whom she had deeply cared for all grown up. The reasons that became friends is starting to come into clarity again and she wonders as she looks into his eyes if what had drawn them together as friends all those years ago was stronger than what had torn them apart. It's hard for her to say yet, but he'd run after her and she figured that meant she needed to brave sitting in the muck of it all a little longer.
After a minute of staring into his eyes as if trying to figure him out, her eyes drift to his mouth and she feels a slight warmth grace her cheeks. Hadn't been that long ago since she'd left her lipstick all over them. She turns her attention to the bottle, and pours them both another drink. "Well, I can't say as this place is borin', never can figure what it'll throw at you." One day it was making a joke out of you in outrageous outfits and leading you to make out in closets. The next, you are stuck facing your fears with that same person who you who can't figure out is friend or foe. "I don't...fully hate it. It's got some good people in it. Sure, we might lose them, but...that ain't different than home. And I'd say we are better equipped to deal with the horror than most." She runs her thumb along the rim of her glass. "Just another battle in a different place."
She really wanted to ask him why he couldn't ever return if it wasn't because of her, but she was too afraid of the answer, so she lets that question hang back in her mind. It's in good company with unasked questions like why hadn't he even tried to get her out or why he couldn't come back but he still came to them when he needed something. She needed so many answers and as usual she wasn't as good at getting what she needed as what she wanted.
Jesse is a little amazed that she’d agreed to come back to the bar. He wonders now and again how far the bounds of Ashe’s seeming tolerance of him goes. At times, it’s almost as if there’s something like friendship between them again. But then the past—reality, really—always rears its head.
And making it even more complicated are things like the way her eyes dart down to his lips. It’s impossible not to remember that heated moment in the closet, and then after, both of them acting right up until they weren’t.
Again, it’s all very complicated. He’s too drunk to even try for a well-timed flirtation, so he just props his shoulder on the counter and his head in his hand, his eyes on Ashe the whole while.
“It’s not the people I mind either. It’s the everythin’ else.” Oof, and what she’s saying really hits home.“It is different though. It’s… it’s like this place takes ‘em away. Like it’s playin’ games.” He frowns out at the crowd, his free hand idly going to the chain around his neck. It had been mostly hidden behind his flannel before. At the end of it is what had been left behind for him of Rei: a little silver camera, and a man’s silver ring. It’s not something he always wears. When he does, he tends to keep it hidden.
“But you’re right. We are better equipped.” His frown deepens, as does his grip on the necklace. “Lot of good that does when we can’t land a hit on whatever is playin’ with us here.”
She was almost surprised herself, it would have been so much smarter to just get on her bike and leave. However, Jesse had come out of that bar after her, and that hadn't happened in years. It would have been easier for him to let her go too, but she supposed they were in whatever went down tonight together. There had been a lot of 'togethers' lately though and it was definitely a challenge to her perception of things. But without Deadlock or Overwatch, it felt in a way like they were back to just being Jesse and Ashe. Perhaps without Overwatch or Deadlock there to divide them, they had a chance to remember each other.
"Jesse McCree admittin' he's missin' the target. Never thought I'd see the day." She teased to try and lighten it up. "I'm tryin' to figure some of that out in my work. Ain't just about the product."
It's hard to not think about what had happened at the party, she'd been thinking about it since then. Hadn't been willing to talk about it. She had questioned whether she'd gone too far, and she knew it had gone farther than necessary. Luckily she is distracted by the necklace that he pulls out when he starts talking about the people. It doesn't take much to figure out that the necklace represented someone important. Likely someone he was missing greatly. She can see the little silver ring and something in her twist uncomfortably.
She lifts her head motioning towards it. "What's that? You go and get married in the time we've been apart?" She can't quite understand why she isn't sure she wants the answer, but her tone doesn't give any of her trepidation away.
Oh yeah. Her work, which is now their work. They’re in this enterprise together, working towards a common goal for the first time since Deadlock. That reminds him of what she’d said before she’d run outside. She’d seemed… shaken. Sad. All these years, Jesse had assumed that Ashe was more than happy. She had it all. The gang continued to thrive, she had all the power and influence and money she could want or need, and surely she had other people these days she was close to. What else could she need?
He might’ve asked, had she not asked about the necklace first.
“Me, get married?” He huffs out something like a laugh, though it’s more sad than amused as he looks down at the ring and the charm. “Nah, this… this belonged to somebody special. She got here when I did. We were…” He trails off. They were together, sure, but… he’d never quite let her in the way he wanted to. He’d been too afraid, to be honest. Good things didn’t happen to people he let get close. But then look what happened—she was gone anyway.
“… She was special. These were hers. Got left by my front door the day I found out.”
No note. Nothing to indicate if it had been her choice, or some sick joke played the town.
Ashe was never satisfied. Her self assured attitude wasn't entirely show because she knew what she was good at and she constantly challenged herself to do better. There was no limit to what she would strive for, but really that boiled down to the fact that nothing was ever enough. There was no amount of money, products, or power that kept her happy. Ambition got her what she wanted, but not necessarily what she needed.
She'd always assumed he was pretty happy as well. Even right then, playing with the necklace around his neck, she had figured that whoever this had been about had been making him happy in a way hadn't. The idea of him marrying had seemed silly to her too. Did wandering rangers even settle down to marry?
Either way she feels an odd weight lift out of her stomach, despite that it's clear there was something going on. "Somebody special, huh? I know that look, you were taken with her."
It felt odd to feel anything like envy, but she couldn't help but feel replaced, like there was this space in his life that she had once filled as his best friend and now he had others to fill it. Though really, that was how she'd always felt. Replaced by Overawtch, replaced by justice, replaced by...whoever this girl was. Even her parents had replaced her spot in their family photo with the dog. She was replaceable, always had been, no matter how much she tightened the rope to make sure no one forgot her. As uncomfortable as she is, she presses on, with another shot of whiskey of course. "So...tell me about it."
Does Jesse even have a look when he’s taken with somebody? He must, for Ashe to notice. Still feels weird to think that she can read him that easily, even now. Equally strange to remember how he could read her just as well once.
Even in Overwatch, with the people he’d grown to consider his own family, he’d not met anyone he’d had that same tie to. He’d been closest with Reyes, but even then—especially near the end—there were things he didn’t know. Secrets the older man had kept close to his chest. There was no coming close to what he and Ashe had, growing up and then fighting their way through adolescence together. Despite what she thinks, he’s never found anything or anyone that could replace that. He likely never will.
“Yeah. I was.” He looks up, blinking until his eyes can focus on her properly. He hasn’t touched his glass for a few minutes, and judging by how blurry his vision is, maybe he shouldn’t if he wants to stay upright until she leaves. “What… d’you want to know?”
He’s surprised she cares, but what’s one more surprise on top of all the ones Ashe has already left him with?
She's starting to wish she was that drunk. Especially when he confirms that. Not that it matters, she's gone obviously. And not that it would have mattered anyway, she tells herself, because there isn't anything she wants from him. However, the confirmation makes her swallow and she reaches over to pour another glass, working her way to his level. They'd both pass out on the counter at this point.
Whether it's about caring or collecting information so she has the bigger picture, she isn't quite sure herself. She isn't so well adjusted as to want happiness for others when it could potentially be a wedge in her own happiness, but she doesn't fault him either. She'd had her own fair share of men in her life that had come and gone. Mostly because she couldn't ever give all of herself and she wasn't one to be controlled. But she doesn't not care, so it's a start.
"I dunno. She's obviously not here anymore, so that's got you upset. Who was she? When did she leave? She come from our world?" It's intense the way she feels, so she reaches for a little teasing to make herself more comfortable...if not him. "You used protection right? Tell me you used protection."
It’s a lot of questions, and it takes Jesse longer than it should to process each one. Tangled up in that is the fact that Ashe even cares, which is its own kind of confusing. He’s upset, and she’s not enjoying it, or at the very least ambivalent. It’s curious.
Anyway, he chose a bad time to sneak in a sip of whiskey. It’ll make answering easier, he thinks, but he hadn’t been expecting the questions to get to quite that level of personal. He chokes, coughing and almost-kind-of on the verge of laughing.
“Y-you… okay now, first of all, ‘course I would’ve. But we weren’t ever…” He coughs again, waving a hand dismissively. “We didn’t get there.”
They’d both had their hang-ups and their fears, old pains and losses. Maybe, if they’d had a little more time…
He’s at least not quite so gloomy when he finally gets his throat clear again. He’s clearly still melancholy, but there’s a touch of something warm now. A hint of fondness.
“Her name was Rei. Rei Kurosawa. Was April when she left, I think… early April. She wasn’t from the same Earth as us, but it was similar. Older. No omnics, but they had cell phones. She had an old camera, one of those you’d use film in. Knew all the settings somehow. Never did wrap my whole brain around it, but she could take a picture like nobody’s business.”
The response lightens the situation, and she can't help but give her own small laugh at his response. It occurs to her that teasing him into the answer ended up with him answering the question she really wanted to know. She's surprised when she feels suddenly a little more relaxed. They hadn't been intimate. Once again, she's mentally scolding herself for even being relieved because it's not like she had wanted that. Except that her mind returns to their over the top make out a few weeks back. "Shame. If you gotta be stuck here, good to have somethin' enjoyable to pass the time." Except that she hadn't slept with anyone either, so it wasn't like she was out passing it that way.
She takes another drink and leans her cheek into her palm to watch him as he goes on about her. Sounded like a Japanese name. There were so many different Earths, and other worlds in this place. It was hard to keep track of. She listens to him talk, relaxing some in the more casual conversation, she even nods to show she's hearing him. Then something catches her mind. "Wait? April? Beginnin' of April? That was the same time I showed up." She whistles low. "Deerington sent your girlfriend home and dragged me in. I take it back. Deerington is fuckin' with you."
It had been around the same time, hadn’t it? He’d still been recovering from the loss, and then there was Ashe. He chuckles quietly, looking down at his drink and then back over at her. She’s not changed since then, but something else has. The dynamic between them is a whole other thing now.
“Not gonna lie, thought for sure you and I were gonna end up in an old-fashioned shoot-out. I know how much you wanted a bullet in me.” More like several bullets, probably one for each time he’d pissed her off—and that’s got to be a lot of lead.
“I’m just lucky you didn’t shoot on sight. This truce we got goin’ on ain’t half bad, is it?”
She had made a lot of noise over the years about shooting him, hadn't she? It wasn't that she was all bark and no bite, because people knew she was faster than a rattlesnake and twice as easily pissed off, but she could also be a lot of bark. His pictures hung all over her dartboards filled with holes from enraged games of darts, but she never seemed to give enough. She accused her team of falling to pieces when he showed up, but her leadership seemed to go shit when he was around. It seemed that she was forever yelling grandiose declarations of war to his back when things were said and done.
"Thought crossed my mind. But I seem to have more luck shooting your photographs than I do you." It wasn't that they couldn't still get into it, considering Deerington seemed to drag up the dirt, but she wasn't dumb. She'd partnered with gangs she had been furious with to accomplish a greater goal, and likewise she'd seen the benefit of partnering with him. Except over the years she had come to respect a lot of those gang members and they her. Seemed the same was happening here. Maybe there was some truth to the fact that when you worked with a person, you started to wonder why you hadn't in the first place.
"Oh, I thought about it. I was still pretty pissed over my bike." She lets out a sigh and closes her eyes for a moment in thought, before opening them and looking at him softly. "No, it ain't. It seems okay, even got you workin' with me again instead of against me. Besides, since comin' here, I've started wonderin' if I'll ever manage to get a bullet into you. This place...it makes you tired."
See, Chloe? People don’t shoot at pictures of people they harbor any not-angry feelings towards, do they? Jesse makes a drunken-and-likely-to-be-forgotten mental note to mention that to her later. Doesn’t matter to him right then that he’s had plenty of reasons to doubt his assumptions about Ashe’s opinion of him in the last few months. All that matters when he’s this full of alcohol is that he was right, dammit.
Hard to celebrate though, when Ashe says that last thing. He nods, expression going tight as he watches her. She does look tired. Or maybe part of that is just how she seems so relaxed, like she’s not gearing up for a fight of some kind or bracing for a blow.
He’d assumed that she was only like that around him these days. Always ready for the next hit, the next betrayal. Maybe this is what she looks like more with the people she trusts. Or—a less comforting thought—maybe Ashe doesn’t actually get to relax that much at all, anywhere, and that’s how she is all the time.
“Yeah. It does. Wears you down.” He’s still watching her face, perhaps a little too intently.
“But you’re not in it alone.”
He’s not sure why he says it like that. He’s obviously not the first person she’d want to turn to for help or support or anything else. But they are working together now, and… just because they had been enemies back home doesn’t mean he wants to see her fall apart here, like so many other people have.
The alcohol in her own system was probably the cause of her openly suggesting that she wasn't really doing very well at actively shooting him. It was more a hint to the fact that something was holding her back from doing it. Shooting his pictures was easy, accomplishing it in reality was a different matter. Not that in the heat of the moment she wasn't dedicated, but after holding him dying she had been questioning her resolve.
So much of her life was on hold at the moment. Without a gang network to run, she had far less on her shoulders. Her business in Deerington didn't hold a candle to what she had going back home. Despite that she wasn't living her usual life, she was living. It was odd to think that she'd been getting comfortable here, but in some ways it was true. She could handle the things tossed her way for the most part. With Jesse she was surprised how easily she fell into old habits. Half a year of him being a central role in her life again and she would having been lying if she had said she hated him. What she felt was confusing, but just the look in her eyes as she watches him suggests a comfortably familiarity.
She's stuck in a conundrum because truth is, he is the first person she would go to in this place, yet she isn't quite at trusting, but she'd find some way and some excuse to go to him first. And when he says she isn't alone, she blinks a couple of times as she feels the knot return.
"Naw, they were smart enough to bring B.O.B. here to pick up after me." The teasing way she says that suggests that's not who she's really thinking of, but she couldn't outright tell him that she had him. Still watching his face though she chews at the inside of her lip. He was so damn attractive and it was hard to look away, especially when liquor was slowing her brain. She leans in slightly, eyes not leaving his and she reaches out to brush a strand of hair off his forehead. "Neither are you. B.O.B.'s got your back too." It was a way of saying she was there for him, because the omnic only would be with her okay. Her fingers linger, how long had it been since she'd really touched him. Party not counting. "Even without that girl of yours."
Jesse huffs a quiet laugh, looking for the first time that night like there isn’t the weight of the world on his shoulders. It doesn’t fix it all, and it won’t bring those who are gone back. But having her here, right now in this moment, makes things feel… right.
It shouldn’t though. He knows it, but he also knows what he feels—that in the midst of all this craziness and danger, there’s a rightness in having her here and fighting beside him. Them against the world again, only in an entirely different way.
Time feels like it slows down at the brush of her fingers against his forehead. He’s looking back at her, completely unable to even glance away, held there as if by some magnetic force. He tilts his head into her touch, just a little.
God, but she’s still beautiful. And more dangerous than ever. And still so stubborn, so loyal, and… wait, what had the point of this thought been?
“B.O.B. has always been one of the best sentient non-humans I know. Guess we’re both lucky.”
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Her mentioning his eyes seems to bring the fact that he’s projecting too much to his attention, and he pointedly looks down at the counter instead. His body stays slightly turned toward hers, though, whether he fully realizes it or not.
“Just been a while since I had anythin’ to lose. Then this place drags me in, and…” He laughs, a sound without any real amusement to it as he takes a drag of his cigarette before resting it in a nearby ashtray. Angela had never liked him smoking. He’d always laughed and pointed out that, in his line of work, it wouldn’t be the smokes that got him in the end. He’s been right so far.
“Moira’s takin’ it hard, but who can blame her? It’s not like we know where people go when they stop bein’ here.” Back home, perhaps. That’s the best-case scenario.
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Though she tries not to focus so heavily on the other thing he'd said it kept nagging at her. "since I had anythin' to lose." Finally she can't keep the burning question she has to herself, so reaches for the cigarette takes a long drag to lets the smoke soothe her nerves. "You mean, since you left Blackwatch." She taps the ash into the ashtray as she quietly says that. She'd always assumed since his kidnapping that Deadlock was a forgotten family and Blackwatch was where he had wanted to be. Her tone isn't accusatory, just sad.
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He can’t think of a reason not to admit it, even if he could think of several while sober. He frowns down at the glowing ember of his own cigarette where it sits, slowly burning itself down. What’d she have to be sad about? She hadn’t liked Blackwatch anyway. Would’ve thought she’d be happy being reminded of its demise and him no longer being a part of it.
“Lost Deadlock. Left Blackwatch, and then that went-” He holds up a hand and flicks his fingers out, as if to mimic an explosion with the single gesture. “Seemed simpler bein’ a rogue agent, and y’know what? It was. It was real damn simple.”
And lonely. Incredibly lonely, but which was worse—being alone, or losing the people you cared about over and over again? He’d thought about that a lot when the Recall happened. It was part of the reason he hadn’t answered it for as long as he had. That, and the lack of oversight and rules that make up a vigilante lifestyle.
“Then this place comes, and it gives you a house. A goddamn house, and you’re stuck in one town seein’ the same faces over and over again, and it’s- it’s bullshit, Ashe.”
He’s definitely drunk, his tone almost petulant as he knocks his glass against the counter for emphasis.
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He'd listed Deadlock in there, and it's reassuring in its own way. She gives voice to his own thoughts. "Sure, bein' without people is simpler, but sittin' in a bar knowin' no one in a town you are only passin' through isn't a life. Not unless you're a tumbleweed." She may not let people in very deep, but she was never happier than when she was counting the bills from a successful score and everyone was celebrating the success together; no matter how drunk and stupid they got.
She picks up her head as his drunken rant gets a little more escalated and he's talking to her, really talking and she's just listening, really listening. This town was brutal, it gave you a house and it had forced her to see him day after day, with little change. And when he'd been dead, it had been his ghost that she'd seen every night.
"...You got comfortable again." She poured a new glass, swallowing it quick and starting to feel the buzz hit her. When he slams his glass down, she stares at her own. A new line of thinking has been slowly growing inside of her over the last nearly half a year and with the alcohol taking effect and his own openness she dares to try and word it. "...I used to think..." She starts carefully but avoids his eyes as she tries to figure out how to communicate with him. "That you were like a tumbleweed, blowin' from place to place. That you'd touch down but be gone as fast, leavin' dust in your wake."
She swallows and some of her hair falls to curtain her face, to make her expression unreadable. "I believed that nothin' was enough for you." That she and Deadlock weren't enough. "And I hated you for that. And I hated myself for thinkin' I could catch you and keep you. Thinkin' you'd been makin' a fool out of me." And he had, but there is a small part of her starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, it was on both of them the damage that had been done to their relationship. "...Maybe, instead of that...maybe it's not that you were lookin' for greener grass, it's that life kept takin' you into yards only just long enough to adjust before forcin' you to move on, and you were strong enough to try and do that."
She takes another deep breath, unsure if anything she'd said was worthwhile and her fingers are shaking slightly as they hold the glass. "You've just done what you always do. You kept on livin', and hopin' for the better outcome to it all. And yet again, the world won't stay still for you. It's not bullshit, Jesse. It's your life, you're a tumbleweed lookin' for somethin' to stop you." She often talked a lot, but she really needed to get it out. "Before comin' here I didn't understand how you could ever get used to or care about people in a place that stole your entire life away. I think...I might be seein' it a little different now." Because now, she was making a home out of something that had seemed like a prison, because she had to survive and she had to not be alone.
She wonders if maybe that had been no different for him all those years ago when Blackwatch had taken him away from her and the gang. While admitting her wrongs didn't come anymore naturally than comfort, this was her trying to really hear him.
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There’s no way she could know that Reyes had called him the same thing once. It twists in his chest, a sharp pain but an old one. But rather than curl back in on himself and turn away, the more Ashe talks, the more Jesse straightens up. He’s outright staring at her by the end, the whole thing less painful now but… unnamable. He doesn’t know what this bittersweet feeling is, only that it’s all-encompassing, like it’s gotten into his blood.
A tumbleweed lookin’ for somethin’ to stop you.
“… Never been that things aren’t enough for me,” he admits finally, breaking the weight of silence that had fallen over them when she’d finished. “Especially not you. Not Deadlock, I mean, not… all of that, any of it.”
He’d wanted to go back so badly. She’d been his family. It’d been his home. But by the time he had, they’d both changed too much. He couldn’t go back any more than Ashe could leave.
But it feels like, for the first time in a long time, she’s not blaming him for it. It’s a surprise how much that actually means to him. For her to understand. For her to look at him like that and see something good in what he’s been through. More good perhaps than he’s ever really seen in any of it.
"But I never hated you."
Why he feels the need to make that clear, only his drunken mind knows.
"I can't ever go back, but... wasn't ever 'cuz of you."
Ashe hadn't been the reason he'd lost Deadlock any more than Reyes had been the reason he'd lost Blackwatch. It'd only ever been him, making bad plays and putting down the wrong cards. Over, over, and over again.
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I can't ever go back. His own words sink in hard, not that she doesn't take in the fact that he had gone on to say that it wasn't about her, but it's the first part that catches up to her. When she'd first seen him after Blackwatch, that had been what she'd wanted. For him to be the prodigal soul returning home to them, so they could pick up where they'd left off. It had been a foolish and childish notion. He'd changed and so had she. In filling the gaps of his absence with anger, violence, and revenge she'd destroyed the home he'd had to come back to.
Of course they hadn't been able to go back, because the past was gone. Maybe they were robbed of it, maybe it wasn't what had been intended, but fighting against the reality had made her bitter. As usual she'd created a war where there hadn't needed to be one. Just another bad play on her part. At the time she hadn't been able to move forward either, so they were stuck in a stand off where every once in awhile the guns came out and made everything worse. The kids they were were gone and she clung to a photograph of what ifs, without ever thinking that maybe just because they couldn't go back didn't mean they couldn't go forward.
The issue then became how to move forward and was there anyway to build new positive memories, or had her lust for control and money destroyed everything she actually wanted? In the middle of becoming Calamity Ashe, she'd forgotten that she was still Elizabeth Ashe and she wasn't really sure what Elizabeth Ashe wanted, because she'd tried to destroy that part of herself to be stronger. Deerington seemed intent on trying to drag up forgotten wants and desires and forcing her to question herself. It was too hard.
"You don't gotta sugar coat it. It was 'cause of me. I changed the family, I..." She swallowed roughly, it was getting hard to not break down over things that had been slowly creeping to the surface finally daring to breach her consciousness. "I...forgot how to have fun. I..." She had become just like her Mama and Daddy and she was swimming in the only thing they had ever loved; wealth. She wants to not believe it, but a nagging feeling says she's an Ashe through and through. And like her parents, she destroyed everything that could possibly love her.
It's too raw and it hurts too much to even begin processing too deeply. Even if she wants to figure out if they could let go of the past and move in sync into the future, she's too afraid. She'll lose him like he lost Angela and she'll be trapped here alone and fighting to survive just like always and it'll only hurt more if she lets him in. She looks up at him, her eyes are wide and nervous. "I...I can't...I gotta go..." She stands up from her chair, clearing her throat because she feels ready to start crying and quickly grabs her jacket before heading towards the door. Whatever is out there in the dark streets of Deerington surely can't hurt her more than the truth coming to light in the bar.
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“Goddamn it, god… damn it, Ashe-”
He about falls over the stool, and he definitely runs into a patron or several on the way out; but not a one of those obstacles will stop him when he’s got it in his mind to be somewhere. The night air, when it hits him, is pleasantly cool. It’s not autumn yet, but the promise of it is there.
“Ashe!” he shouts her name, not really sure if she’s far enough away yet to warrant how loud his voice is. Important thing is that she hears him.
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She stops in her tracks when she hears him call her name, and she's surprised. He'd come after her and she hadn't been expecting it. After all, she'd assumed that he'd just return to drinking, he'd wanted to be alone in the first place after all. She wasn't sure she'd been good company. But slowly she turns around, it's not hard to see she's still a bit defensive, but she hasn't had the time to build the wall back up again.
"C'mon Jesse, I don't know what else to say... You didn't even want me there in the first place tonight, and I'm no good at reassuring anyone that it will be alright. I don't know how to help you...or make it better." No one had ever taken the time to teach her how.
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“Don’t need you to say anythin’.” He’s the one who has things to say, but the amount of whiskey he’s already had is really making it a struggle.
“You said it was ‘cuz of you. It wasn’t, and I just… I can’t let you go runnin’ off in the middle of a… a murdertown in the middle of the night with B.O.B. because you think you messed up, and…”
He’s losing steam, losing coherence, but there’s one thing he can still focus on well enough.
“Just…”
Don’t go.
“Stay for one more drink.”
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The battle inside her head over what to do wages, but ultimately she realizes she's screwed at this point. She lets out a sigh and her shoulders ease. She moves towards him and back towards the bar.
"Alright." She tries to keep her head high, but it's an effort to stay poised and strong in the moment. "Guess I could go for one more drink."
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“You still got a bottle to finish,” he reminds her as he follows her back in. The other bargoers give him a wide berth this time.
“Don’t got to talk about anythin’ if you don’t want. Can go back to the original plan. Just drinkin’.”
Because if anything is clear now, it’s that Ashe has just as many demons as he does. More than he’d thought.
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She takes her seat again at the counter, and the barkeep nods his head to her. Tucking the longer pieces of hair behind her ear so that she's not hiding behind it, she dares to glance up at him. This was the boy whom she had deeply cared for all grown up. The reasons that became friends is starting to come into clarity again and she wonders as she looks into his eyes if what had drawn them together as friends all those years ago was stronger than what had torn them apart. It's hard for her to say yet, but he'd run after her and she figured that meant she needed to brave sitting in the muck of it all a little longer.
After a minute of staring into his eyes as if trying to figure him out, her eyes drift to his mouth and she feels a slight warmth grace her cheeks. Hadn't been that long ago since she'd left her lipstick all over them. She turns her attention to the bottle, and pours them both another drink. "Well, I can't say as this place is borin', never can figure what it'll throw at you." One day it was making a joke out of you in outrageous outfits and leading you to make out in closets. The next, you are stuck facing your fears with that same person who you who can't figure out is friend or foe. "I don't...fully hate it. It's got some good people in it. Sure, we might lose them, but...that ain't different than home. And I'd say we are better equipped to deal with the horror than most." She runs her thumb along the rim of her glass. "Just another battle in a different place."
She really wanted to ask him why he couldn't ever return if it wasn't because of her, but she was too afraid of the answer, so she lets that question hang back in her mind. It's in good company with unasked questions like why hadn't he even tried to get her out or why he couldn't come back but he still came to them when he needed something. She needed so many answers and as usual she wasn't as good at getting what she needed as what she wanted.
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And making it even more complicated are things like the way her eyes dart down to his lips. It’s impossible not to remember that heated moment in the closet, and then after, both of them acting right up until they weren’t.
Again, it’s all very complicated. He’s too drunk to even try for a well-timed flirtation, so he just props his shoulder on the counter and his head in his hand, his eyes on Ashe the whole while.
“It’s not the people I mind either. It’s the everythin’ else.” Oof, and what she’s saying really hits home.“It is different though. It’s… it’s like this place takes ‘em away. Like it’s playin’ games.” He frowns out at the crowd, his free hand idly going to the chain around his neck. It had been mostly hidden behind his flannel before. At the end of it is what had been left behind for him of Rei: a little silver camera, and a man’s silver ring. It’s not something he always wears. When he does, he tends to keep it hidden.
“But you’re right. We are better equipped.” His frown deepens, as does his grip on the necklace. “Lot of good that does when we can’t land a hit on whatever is playin’ with us here.”
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"Jesse McCree admittin' he's missin' the target. Never thought I'd see the day." She teased to try and lighten it up. "I'm tryin' to figure some of that out in my work. Ain't just about the product."
It's hard to not think about what had happened at the party, she'd been thinking about it since then. Hadn't been willing to talk about it. She had questioned whether she'd gone too far, and she knew it had gone farther than necessary. Luckily she is distracted by the necklace that he pulls out when he starts talking about the people. It doesn't take much to figure out that the necklace represented someone important. Likely someone he was missing greatly. She can see the little silver ring and something in her twist uncomfortably.
She lifts her head motioning towards it. "What's that? You go and get married in the time we've been apart?" She can't quite understand why she isn't sure she wants the answer, but her tone doesn't give any of her trepidation away.
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He might’ve asked, had she not asked about the necklace first.
“Me, get married?” He huffs out something like a laugh, though it’s more sad than amused as he looks down at the ring and the charm. “Nah, this… this belonged to somebody special. She got here when I did. We were…” He trails off. They were together, sure, but… he’d never quite let her in the way he wanted to. He’d been too afraid, to be honest. Good things didn’t happen to people he let get close. But then look what happened—she was gone anyway.
“… She was special. These were hers. Got left by my front door the day I found out.”
No note. Nothing to indicate if it had been her choice, or some sick joke played the town.
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She'd always assumed he was pretty happy as well. Even right then, playing with the necklace around his neck, she had figured that whoever this had been about had been making him happy in a way hadn't. The idea of him marrying had seemed silly to her too. Did wandering rangers even settle down to marry?
Either way she feels an odd weight lift out of her stomach, despite that it's clear there was something going on. "Somebody special, huh? I know that look, you were taken with her."
It felt odd to feel anything like envy, but she couldn't help but feel replaced, like there was this space in his life that she had once filled as his best friend and now he had others to fill it. Though really, that was how she'd always felt. Replaced by Overawtch, replaced by justice, replaced by...whoever this girl was. Even her parents had replaced her spot in their family photo with the dog. She was replaceable, always had been, no matter how much she tightened the rope to make sure no one forgot her. As uncomfortable as she is, she presses on, with another shot of whiskey of course. "So...tell me about it."
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Even in Overwatch, with the people he’d grown to consider his own family, he’d not met anyone he’d had that same tie to. He’d been closest with Reyes, but even then—especially near the end—there were things he didn’t know. Secrets the older man had kept close to his chest. There was no coming close to what he and Ashe had, growing up and then fighting their way through adolescence together. Despite what she thinks, he’s never found anything or anyone that could replace that. He likely never will.
“Yeah. I was.” He looks up, blinking until his eyes can focus on her properly. He hasn’t touched his glass for a few minutes, and judging by how blurry his vision is, maybe he shouldn’t if he wants to stay upright until she leaves. “What… d’you want to know?”
He’s surprised she cares, but what’s one more surprise on top of all the ones Ashe has already left him with?
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Whether it's about caring or collecting information so she has the bigger picture, she isn't quite sure herself. She isn't so well adjusted as to want happiness for others when it could potentially be a wedge in her own happiness, but she doesn't fault him either. She'd had her own fair share of men in her life that had come and gone. Mostly because she couldn't ever give all of herself and she wasn't one to be controlled. But she doesn't not care, so it's a start.
"I dunno. She's obviously not here anymore, so that's got you upset. Who was she? When did she leave? She come from our world?" It's intense the way she feels, so she reaches for a little teasing to make herself more comfortable...if not him. "You used protection right? Tell me you used protection."
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Anyway, he chose a bad time to sneak in a sip of whiskey. It’ll make answering easier, he thinks, but he hadn’t been expecting the questions to get to quite that level of personal. He chokes, coughing and almost-kind-of on the verge of laughing.
“Y-you… okay now, first of all, ‘course I would’ve. But we weren’t ever…” He coughs again, waving a hand dismissively. “We didn’t get there.”
They’d both had their hang-ups and their fears, old pains and losses. Maybe, if they’d had a little more time…
He’s at least not quite so gloomy when he finally gets his throat clear again. He’s clearly still melancholy, but there’s a touch of something warm now. A hint of fondness.
“Her name was Rei. Rei Kurosawa. Was April when she left, I think… early April. She wasn’t from the same Earth as us, but it was similar. Older. No omnics, but they had cell phones. She had an old camera, one of those you’d use film in. Knew all the settings somehow. Never did wrap my whole brain around it, but she could take a picture like nobody’s business.”
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She takes another drink and leans her cheek into her palm to watch him as he goes on about her. Sounded like a Japanese name. There were so many different Earths, and other worlds in this place. It was hard to keep track of. She listens to him talk, relaxing some in the more casual conversation, she even nods to show she's hearing him. Then something catches her mind. "Wait? April? Beginnin' of April? That was the same time I showed up." She whistles low. "Deerington sent your girlfriend home and dragged me in. I take it back. Deerington is fuckin' with you."
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It had been around the same time, hadn’t it? He’d still been recovering from the loss, and then there was Ashe. He chuckles quietly, looking down at his drink and then back over at her. She’s not changed since then, but something else has. The dynamic between them is a whole other thing now.
“Not gonna lie, thought for sure you and I were gonna end up in an old-fashioned shoot-out. I know how much you wanted a bullet in me.” More like several bullets, probably one for each time he’d pissed her off—and that’s got to be a lot of lead.
“I’m just lucky you didn’t shoot on sight. This truce we got goin’ on ain’t half bad, is it?”
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"Thought crossed my mind. But I seem to have more luck shooting your photographs than I do you." It wasn't that they couldn't still get into it, considering Deerington seemed to drag up the dirt, but she wasn't dumb. She'd partnered with gangs she had been furious with to accomplish a greater goal, and likewise she'd seen the benefit of partnering with him. Except over the years she had come to respect a lot of those gang members and they her. Seemed the same was happening here. Maybe there was some truth to the fact that when you worked with a person, you started to wonder why you hadn't in the first place.
"Oh, I thought about it. I was still pretty pissed over my bike." She lets out a sigh and closes her eyes for a moment in thought, before opening them and looking at him softly. "No, it ain't. It seems okay, even got you workin' with me again instead of against me. Besides, since comin' here, I've started wonderin' if I'll ever manage to get a bullet into you. This place...it makes you tired."
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Hard to celebrate though, when Ashe says that last thing. He nods, expression going tight as he watches her. She does look tired. Or maybe part of that is just how she seems so relaxed, like she’s not gearing up for a fight of some kind or bracing for a blow.
He’d assumed that she was only like that around him these days. Always ready for the next hit, the next betrayal. Maybe this is what she looks like more with the people she trusts. Or—a less comforting thought—maybe Ashe doesn’t actually get to relax that much at all, anywhere, and that’s how she is all the time.
“Yeah. It does. Wears you down.” He’s still watching her face, perhaps a little too intently.
“But you’re not in it alone.”
He’s not sure why he says it like that. He’s obviously not the first person she’d want to turn to for help or support or anything else. But they are working together now, and… just because they had been enemies back home doesn’t mean he wants to see her fall apart here, like so many other people have.
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So much of her life was on hold at the moment. Without a gang network to run, she had far less on her shoulders. Her business in Deerington didn't hold a candle to what she had going back home. Despite that she wasn't living her usual life, she was living. It was odd to think that she'd been getting comfortable here, but in some ways it was true. She could handle the things tossed her way for the most part. With Jesse she was surprised how easily she fell into old habits. Half a year of him being a central role in her life again and she would having been lying if she had said she hated him. What she felt was confusing, but just the look in her eyes as she watches him suggests a comfortably familiarity.
She's stuck in a conundrum because truth is, he is the first person she would go to in this place, yet she isn't quite at trusting, but she'd find some way and some excuse to go to him first. And when he says she isn't alone, she blinks a couple of times as she feels the knot return.
"Naw, they were smart enough to bring B.O.B. here to pick up after me." The teasing way she says that suggests that's not who she's really thinking of, but she couldn't outright tell him that she had him. Still watching his face though she chews at the inside of her lip. He was so damn attractive and it was hard to look away, especially when liquor was slowing her brain. She leans in slightly, eyes not leaving his and she reaches out to brush a strand of hair off his forehead. "Neither are you. B.O.B.'s got your back too." It was a way of saying she was there for him, because the omnic only would be with her okay. Her fingers linger, how long had it been since she'd really touched him. Party not counting. "Even without that girl of yours."
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It shouldn’t though. He knows it, but he also knows what he feels—that in the midst of all this craziness and danger, there’s a rightness in having her here and fighting beside him. Them against the world again, only in an entirely different way.
Time feels like it slows down at the brush of her fingers against his forehead. He’s looking back at her, completely unable to even glance away, held there as if by some magnetic force. He tilts his head into her touch, just a little.
God, but she’s still beautiful. And more dangerous than ever. And still so stubborn, so loyal, and… wait, what had the point of this thought been?
“B.O.B. has always been one of the best sentient non-humans I know. Guess we’re both lucky.”
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