Glue Fish: Chapter 1
It was a few good hours since Overwatch had dumped them in a salt marsh, somewhere along the East Coast; and, just a bit aways from wherever Talon-camp they'd been set to gather intel from.
"Bwoop. Bweep. Bwoop~!" Sang Junkrat. He tapped his mechanical fingers against a tin-can, trying to make music where there was none…
"Look Junkrat, can't yah shut up just for a few minutes? That tin-can wasn't funny FOUR hours ago!" Cried McCree. He'd been trying to be polite and ignore it, but he'd forgotten that Junkrat 'didn't' have manners much.
"Fuck," Junkrat abruptly stopped.
McCree looked back, he hadn't 'hurt Junkrat's feelings' had he?
Junkrat amber-eyes stared at the sky, as if hopeless.
"It's only been four hours?" He actually looked ready to cry.
He was half-way up to his knees in mud. A black trashbag had been hastily wrapped around his peg-leg to keep it semi-dry. His lone sock and boot however, were practically sucked off in the muck.
"It stinks out here too! If I smell it, you know it's bad." Junkrat facepalmed, looking down at the mud as if it was quicksand.
"Yep, a nice sulfur-smell, alright." McCree nodded, to offer some comradic sympathy. "Yep, yep, bog missions suck…"
Without thinking, he pulled out a carton and lit a cigar. He closed his eyes in bliss. The smoke was dry, like a nice desert sun. He hadn't even begun to think of the 'humidity' that made his skin prickle and itch like crazy.
"Hey Rat, you wanna smoke?"
"A what?" Junkrat looked at McCree as if he was stupid, slowly gesturing to the grenades strapped to his chest.
"Nah, no thanks. Best to keep any stray embers away from me."
McCree raised a brow, "But your hair is on fire."
And it was true. Something was always burning around Junkrat, usually the sad, sticky-gold locks he dared call hair.
"Roight," Junkrat shrugged. "But that's different. I just don't wanna start smoking."
"You 'don't' smoke?" McCree smirked incredulously. "Sure, and I don't shoot a gun."
"Look Mackie," huffed Junkrat, "I'm 'always' covered in gunpowder."
Rat wagged his brows, thisking at McCree's cigar. "If I get hooked onto those little death-sticks, I'll be blowing smoke out my ass in no time."
McCree shrugged, "Point made, I guess." He still didn't believe Junkrat wasn't the type to smoke. Just looking at him, stuck in the mud like a sad little sapling, said that he needed a cigar desperately."
"I huff gasoline though."
"Of course you do," chuckled McCree. Now that, he could believe.
"Okay Rat, get a move on. We don't wanna be stuck out in this bog after dark, do we?"
McCree moved fast by taking advantage of rocks and mangrove roots, which paved the way.
However, looking back...poor Junkrat was left in the dust, sticky, messy-dust.
Junkrat struggled to even take one step. His boot was slick enough to pop off if he didn't aim his foot right. It didn't help that everything else was wet; he'd also neglected to waterproof his mechanical arm...so he couldn't afford to move carelessly.
His peg-leg was another lost cause altogether. It cut through mud like a knife did butter, useless for walking.
Eventually Rat had to resort to gripping upper mangrove branches to propel himself forward, like some discount-tarzan.
McCree just shook his head in pity and disbelief.
"Are you coming!?" he shouted, uncertainty.
"Yeah, just...gimme a sec," Junkrat shouted back.
McCree sighed, taking his hat off to give his head a nice, nervous scratch. All their shouting might just jeopardize the mission, eventually.
"Do you need help?"
"Nah, nah! Imma coming!"
But Junkrat didn't move. He was flat on his belly, tangled in the cagey roots of a mangrove.
"You look like you need help."
"Uh…my peg?"
Junkrat needn't say more. McCree marched up, his face redder than a beet.
He was mad, oh how he was plain ticked-off, but not at Junkrat…
"Why the fuck did they send 'US' out here?!"
"I don't know!" Screamed Junkrat.
"We're desert-dwelling folk! What were they thinking?!"
"I don't...knowww-wait!" Junkrat got his bearings, slowly unhooking his peg-leg from a snag in a branch.
"Maybe, maybe they sent us out here because we've worked well on missions before? Like us being a winning combo?"
McCree rolled his eyes, "Yeah, but those missions were in a DESERT, mind you. Not, not a bog!"
McCree threw his hands up in the air, aghast.
"Mackie, isn't this supposed to be a stealth mission?"
"Oh fuck, yeah, that!" Whose idea was it to send "Junkrat" on a "stealth-mission?"
"Mackie."
Junkrat was still twisted up in some branches, looking like a hairless otter. Even the embers on his hair had gone out, since his face had ended up hovering over water.
"Mackie."
"What?"
"Carry me, Mackie."
"E-excuse me?"
The weird request put McCree's anger on hold.
"I said carry me~!" Junkrat went all doe-eyed, a piss-poor attempt at looking like a damsel, if he ever did see one.
"Do I look like Roadhog?"
Junkrat blinked, cocking his head as if to think about it. "Yeah!"
McCree pulled down his hat, covering his face to think, and to keep himself from getting angry again.
"AHHHHH!"
"Geezus, Junkrat, shut yer trap. I'm not going to carry you!"
"T-that wasn't me…" said Junkrat. He dipped his head up to his nose in water, as if he could hide...
"AHHHHH!"
Both nervously looked in the direction of the scream.
"There it is again." McCree whispered, crouching down to become eye-level with Rat.
"Stay here, I'll go investigate."
Junkrat was rendered speechless, as he watched McCree mosey on away.
A white horse, bright like campfire ash, looked to McCree with its pearly eyes.
"Holy moly…," McCree gasped.
The horse was standing in a clearing from where'd he heard the scream.
He whipped his head around, anticipating to find a Talon-soldier stuck in the bog...or more likely, a rancher, now that he thought about it…
But why was a horse in a bog of all places? McCree thisked, the poor creature had been misplaced just like Junkrat and himself had been. The both of them belonged in a desert, and a pretty horse like this, in a nice big pasture.
It must have wandered off...jumped a fence if McCree had to guess.
The horse had huge, beautiful legs, which almost dwarfed him in size.
It looked to be a draft-breed, or a war-stallion. It was a 'very' impressive specimen. Must've been a show-horse or something-had to be, lookin' so pretty.
McCree wanted to yell out for Junkrat to get his butt moving to come see it, but he didn't dare risk scaring it off.
Like any proper cowboy, he'd away kept a rope on him.
McCree was no stranger to handling horses. He'd owned his own ranch before he gave up on a county-lifestyle.
He approached the horse slowly, arms held steady. His rope was out, a proper lasso, which he swung gently to make sure everything was in order.
The horse didn't seem to pay him much mind.
It bent down to graze without so much as looking at him.
No way it was a "wild" horse.
Even the most stubborn and/or courageous horses he'd dealt with had never outright ignored him.
Careful now...steady now…toss with a hook...
*Whoosh
The lasso hit its target. The rope sat firmly around the horse's neck and only now did it look at McCree as he came closer.
"Now, that's a nice fella. You're well behaved, ain't yah? You remind me of a fancy, rich-noble type."
He patted the horse's neck, smiling when it began sniffing his hair.
"Haha, I'm afraid I don't have any snacks on me. My hair and hat aren't good eats, sadly."
McCree frowned, looking at the muck the horse was grazing on.
Eating reeds and algae couldn't be good for it.
"Now where's your home? Can't be far."
The horse's pelt was like fresh snow, oddly not a speck of dirt to be found. It hasn't been in the bog for long.
McCree grew more enamoured every second.
He began to pet it more and more, mystified that it was so calm around a stranger.
Even the friendly little yearlings on his ranch had never accepted a stranger so quickly.
Hrm...could he possibly...ride it?
McCree glanced at the horse's ears, which were perked fine like daisies. He'd bet a fistful of gold that it wouldn't mind to take him for a ride.
"McCree!" Junkrat screamed, barreling down a boggy-hill into the clearing. "You ditched me you asshole!"
McCree bit his lip. Junkrat was running at him now, or at least trying to, as he still flopped around, rather helplessly in the mud.
"What...don't, danger!" Gurgled Junkrat, through a mouthful of mud.
McCree felt the horse tense, likely from the noise Junkrat was kicking up.
He tensed up himself, tightening his grip on the rope. He didn't want the horse to suddenly bolt...
"Hey Rat, watch me break-in this beauty. I bet I can pull off a ride."
McCree hoisted himself up. He'd thought Junkrat would shut up once he did, perhaps to marvel at how good he must've looked on top of such a beautiful steed.
But Junkrat just looked horrified.
"NO! Don't touch it!"
Did...did Junkrat not know what a horse was or something?
"You gotta get OFF, now!"
It wasn't that outlandish. Junkrat was raised in a post-apocalyptic Australia after all, no happy horses there...but, why the screaming?
McCree laughed. "Relax, it's just a horse!"
"It's not a horse!" Junkrat waved his arms around, a madman turned rabid.
"Not a horse!" He screamed, and screamed.
Not.
A.
Horse.
Junkrat's eyes locked with McCree's. His face was flushed with such genuine terror that McCree felt the world slow down...
In fact, the whole world was going down around him…
McCree looked forward, his vision going blurry as he felt the horse bolt.
Naturally, he leaned forward to keep a grip on the horse, but to his horror, found he didn't need to.
The horse's coat had turned pasty, gluey, as if the fur was melting. With each passing second the coat grew darker and darker, until the entire beast matched the bog-muck around it.
Junkrat was screaming, but McCree could no longer hear him!
Through his blurry-vision he pulled a hand away to find that he couldn't. He couldn't adjust his grip...he couldn't adjust the lasso…
McCree knew he wasn't mad when he pulled away hard, so that a hand could prevent his hat from flying away...but he couldn't…
No even the strength of his cybernetic arm could break free!
Glue...strings of the stuff, poured from the horse's backside.
A slimy-hardshell had encased his hands.
McCree still didn't understand when he looked to move his legs, and found them too, immoveable.
A swath of gluey-tendrils looped over and over him…
Creeping up to his chest...slugs in his mouth...
McCree couldn't blink as the horse...no, beast...monster, dived deep into the bog! A grave splash drowned all his other senses out.
Cold, fetid water clouded his vision. Bubbles from his screaming poured out as the glue constricted his chest, clogged his throat…
He couldn't breath! Couldn't see! Couldn't feel, as everything was knocked out of him.
The horse dissolved between his legs, but McCree couldn't kick to swim, to breath. He was frozen.
He saw pearly-white eyes, unblinking...unmoving...
Not.
A.
Horse.
Finally he understood.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Reviews and Feedback is very much appreciated!