It was just another Saturday for Mercy. She flicked on her PC, shouting something in Norwegian to her parents. She sighed; lovely though they were, her parents didn't really understand her. How she wished they accepted her love of gaming. She had real life friends and interests of course, but nothing quite gave her the same joy as spending an evening kicking ass with people from around the world. Her parents were concerned, called it 'an addiction' but Mercy didn't think so, it was what she enjoyed.
Her PC turned on and she opened up one of her favourite games. Familiar characters filtered onto the screen, arranging themselves in an organised tableau of poses. Overwatch. She spent many an hour fighting to defend her team these days. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted her main, the aptly named Mercy. Her friends really thought of them as one single entity at this point, one was not named after the other. She could see the other characters on screen too, each one bringing to mind one of her dearest friends. There was Owain's Ana, Fil's Genji and Sam's Symmetra. She could see Gnome's Orisa and Wolfy's McCree (which was now famous after scoring a play on a YouTube compilation). Then there was Tracer. Mercy could feel the familiar thump of her heart as her brain made the association. Pukson's Tracer...and Pukson. Mercy sighed, opening the Overwatch Discord server. Pukson was a mystery. They had a good friendship and some chemistry, sure, but it wasn't like *that*...was it? That would be odd, and besides they were years apart. Puk was the Resident Old Man and she was one of the youngest in the group. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that they were becoming something more than just friends.
The Discord server was strangely empty, there were very few people around. It was a strange occurrence for a Saturday, though Mercy didn't think much of it. She queued up for a competitive game. Overwatch was a pretty strong game for her, she had a good record each season but this time she was determined to do better than ever before with some of her new friends to back her up. The game was slow and tough, it was so difficult to win but a great 4 man Resurrect at the end meant Mercy secured the game for her team. She was feeling pretty good, absentmindedly checking the Discord again. It was then when she saw it; Pukson sitting alone in one of the voice channels.
Now this wasn't a particularly rare occurrence, it was quite a Pukson thing to do. Mercy thought it was cute but she'd never tell anyone that, it would sound insane. She stared at the channel, wondering whether to join. It would just be the two of them, and they didn't get to spend much time alone. She was so absorbed in thought she didn't notice that she was leaning on her mouse and she'd entered the chat by mistake.
"MERCYYYYYYYY!" Pukson screamed. It seemed he had developed a sort of a habit of talking way louder than was necessary. It was another one of his little quirks and Mercy wouldn't have changed it for the world. Her support of it did nothing to stop her shock when it caught her completely off guard though.
"Oh my God! Pukson!?" she exclaimed in shock.
"Who else would it be? We're the only ones around!" he half-yelled. Mercy didn't know how to respond.
"I...uh..w-well yeah I knew that..b-but like I didn't mean to join the chat and you surprised me." she managed to stutter. There was silence for a few seconds, but to Mercy it could have been 3 seconds or 3 years. It seemed to last forever, like time had stopped working altogether.
Puk broke the silence. "Well if this is what you call a mistake you definitely should be making more mistakes."
Mercy's heart stopped dead. It was *these* moments, when one of them said something a little too nice; those were the moments that Mercy could swear meant more than just friendship. She wasn't the only one either. Recently the others had begun teasing Puk and her about it. Of course they all laughed it off and it was a good funny joke but maybe there was a little truth to it somewhere. Pukson's voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she apologised to him.
"Are you ok?" he asked, the concern evident in his voice. "You've been kinda spaced out today and we've only been talking for like 3 minutes Mercy!" he chuckled a little.
'Yeah I'm totally fine except for my heart, I'm going to have a stroke if it doesn't calm down!' she thought to herself. Letting out a small sigh, she formulated an actual reply. "Oh yeah I'm great, just a pretty stressful comp game. I think it took a lot out of me, you know, carrying everyone as Mercy isn't easy!"
Pukson laughed his little sing-song laugh at the statement, a smile warming his face. Mercy didn't have to be able to see him to know he was smiling, it was an unspoken fact. She thought about how it would be to see that smile in real life and how much she was looking forward to the day that would be a reality. She'd only really seen Puk a few times in pictures...and her mind lingered on one picture in particular with a very special pair of leggings. Suddenly her heart was racing again; Mercy could have sworn it was loud enough to hear. She panicked, her breathing becoming faster. She felt dizzy, anxious, confused. Silently, she cursed Pukson and the influence he had over her.
Hurriedly, she spoke up again. "Hey Puk, I...uh, think I'm gonna go take a shower but I'll be back later ok?". She waited just long enough for a goodbye before quitting the call. 'I really need that shower," she thought to herself "and a cold one at that!'.