"Liz… wake up."
Her reaction was a bit delayed, as her brain still wasn't quite functional. A brief glance around explained that for her – it was still pitch black out. Roadhog was looming above, nudging her with his foot. She pushed the toe of his boot away. "What's going on?"
"We're resuming the original plan. Rat should be waking up soon. If there's anything you need to take care of, now's the time."
"Take care of?" The God AI came to mind. "Like what?"
"I'm about to take a slash, and we're leaving after that. Thought you might wanna do the same."
"Oh. Okay." She dragged out her wake-up stretches to kill time until he was out the door. As soon as it shut behind him, she reached for the peg, holding it up-side down until its contents slid out into her hand – the tiny usb drive. Delicately holding it between her fingertips, she brought it right to her face to examine it closely. Nothing special about it. Not that she could tell…. But she was holding it with her own hands, seeing it with her own eyes – proof that it existed. Sorta.
There's no telling what's really on this thing.
Suddenly Junkrat stirred. "Just how I drew it up!"
Jarred, she franticly shoved it back into its home and tossed the peg roughly where she'd found it. "What's that?"
"Boba tea…"
She moved closer and examined him. "Are you awake?"
"Half milk, half sweet."
"I'll take that as a no..."
"And dumplings for Mako."
Smirking, she decided to test the waters. "So, Jamie… What's the name of the God AI?"
"It's not a God AI!"
A jolt of apprehension struck her. "It's not?"
"She's a goddess, you dingy drongo…"
"Oh, really? What does she do?"
"Whatever I want." He rolled onto his side toward her, eyes still closed and donning a silly grin.
"Does she have a name?"
"…I call her Cookie…"
"The Goddess?"
"No, the Sheila… She's…"
She leaned closer. "She's what?"
"Just..." He nuzzled his cheek deeper into his folded hands. "Wonderful."
Liz hadn't noticed Roadhog had returned until he spoke. "Also, he's a sleep talker. Never shuts up. Ever." He pointed a meaty thumb behind him. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah." She nudged Junkrat. "Oh, Ja-a-amison."
His eyes rolled open and his smile curled wider. "Well, g'day."
"Time to set the world on fire," she sing-songed.
He sighed with contentment whilst casually finger-banging his nostril. "An angel... Am I dead?"
Roadhog scoffed. "No, just high on pain killers." He tossed the keys to Liz. "You should drive. I have to help him reattach his arm."
She picked the appendage up and looked at it. "Actually, why don't I help him with that."
"I've done this before. It'll be easier if I do."
"Yeah, but," she waved her mech hand at him, "I should probably learn how. Just in case."
He sighed, snatching the keys back from her. "Fine."
Liz looked at his arm, turning it over in her hands. While she was pondering how this was going to work, Junkrat sat up and scooted to her. He looked absolutely gone with his hair a bigger mess than usual, his eyes barely open a slit, and beads of spit at the corners of his mouth. He absent-mindedly wiped them away but still continued to drool. "The, uh, thing."
She held out his prosthetic to him. "This?"
"Yeah. I mean, no." He took it, and pointed to an empty milk crate on the floor. "That."
She dragged it near him and he placed the arm on it, waving her closer with his fingers.
She couldn't get any closer without being on him. "What do you want me to do exactly?"
He leaned his arm stub on the crate and grabbed hold of her leg, putting it around his back and placing his own leg stub around her other side in a weird straddle. "Hold it here," he instructed her, nodding to his mech as he dug a wire stripper out of his bag and set it on the crate.
He suddenly reached for her hand. Inadvertently seeing him differently after her talk with Roadhog the night before, her stomach did a quick flip at his touch. "What are you –?"
He moved her fingers to the short wires jutting from his arm. "You have to be my other hand, Cookie. Hold this wire out for me."
She watched intently as he trimmed some of the coating off the ends. "That doesn't seem too difficult."
"Yeah, but on your own it's a bastard. Too many more accidents like this, and I'll have to go under the knife again."
"Why's that?"
He mended the severed ends together with some difficulty. "Running out of slack." He pinched the ends in place with his black fingernails and held them. "Get the tape out of my bag, will ya, mate?"
Her eyes trailed down to the messenger bag hanging at his waist and her stomach did another flip. She hadn't realized she had hesitated.
"Problem?"
"N-no." She hovered her hand over his thigh, carefully reaching inside, but she couldn't quit thinking about how the bag happened to be resting between his legs at the moment. What's wrong with you, Liz?
Slowly understanding the situation, Junkrat began to smile. "You look a little distracted," he teased.
Digging deeper, she could tell her fingertips had grazed the area she had been trying to avoid. "Sorry!" she gasped, quickly producing the roll of tape.
He chuckled. "That's pretty low, Cookie. Taking advantage of me like that…"
"It was an accident."
He smirked. "All you hafta do is ask."
She averted her eyes as her face blushed pink. "Can we just get back to the task at hand?"
"Suuure, if you can control yourself long enough."
Liz's cheeks were growing hotter as he went back to work, and she found herself still thinking about what he had said instead of watching what he was doing. "So… All I'd have to do is ask, huh?"
"Did I say that out loud?" He giggled. "Guess I'm still a bit off me head." His eyes wandered off the crate to her thigh resting on his. He didn't realize his gaze had moved up to her cleavage until one of his mech fingers started twitching on its own.
"Uh, Junkrat… Is it supposed to do that?"
He eyeballed the spasming digit. "…No." With a frustrated sigh, he ripped apart the last connection he'd made and went back to repairing it, thinking back to how he'd messed up the blasting cap. "It would help if you…" he trailed off.
"If I what?"
"Talk about something else. Anything else." He exhaled through pursed lips. "So I can focus."
"Right." His request reminded her how little time she had until he replaced his leg, putting that thumb drive out of her reach indefinitely. She didn't see any chance of getting to it again before that happened, but there was something freeing about that thought, like it was out of her hands. "You wanna tell me some more about the goddess?" she asked flippantly.
His face contorted with dramatic shock as the wire strippers fell through his fingers, hitting the ground with a thud. "What?!"
"You didn't know you talk in your sleep?"
"Fuck me dead and bury me pregnant…"
Her brow cocked in amusement. "That's a new one."
His eyes were drawn to the treasure's hiding place, but he consciously forced them back to Liz. "What did I say?"
"The treasure's a God AI, ain't it?"
"Hooley dooley." He scowled deeply, turning back to taping the wires in his arm. "I really am a fuckwit."
She ripped the tape strip for him. "No, you're not. It's not like that really means anything to me. But I'm guessing it does to Sombra."
"That'd be right." He pushed his arm into the prosthetic's socket with a grunt. "Go ask Hog for some more of that bone-healing juice or whatever." Wincing, he twisted some adjusters at the top of the arm, still holding it in place as a few dribbles of blood seeped out of the connection. "I think we're done here," he said in a strained tone.
By the time she had returned with one of those yellow canisters, he already had his leg screwed back on. She passed the can to him. "He says we're almost there."
"Good." He dispensed the canister's contents and tossed it aside, sighing happily as he rotated his bandaged shoulder. "Let's get this party started."
"What a beautiful day!" Junkrat exclaimed as he jumped out of the truck with a stretch. Liz looked around, observing it was still a while until sunrise. The streets, in shambles from all the rioting, were still without power and virtually empty. The only sound she could hear was the distant wailing of some car alarm. She just shrugged and followed.
Roadhog stepped down out of the cab, already in a standing position due to his immense height. He opened a sack and tossed a few cans of spray paint to Liz and Junkrat.
She began shaking her can as she approached some graffiti on a nearby wall. It was a purple angular skull with the words "Los Muertos" scrawled under it in lime green. She kept staring at it emptily, eventually stilling the can and looking to Junkrat. "You go first," she insisted.
He laughed. "What's your hang up?" He walked up beside her and began spraying yellow over the tag in a big wide circle. With a second can of black, he turned the circle into the signature smiley face from the truck and all of his weapons. "It's not hard."
She looked over to Roadhog who had simply sprayed an "X" over another Los Muertos tag in red.
Junkrat motioned to his partner's work. "See? It can be anything, really." He gave her a light shove as he moved past her to the next tag. "Time is a factor, though, so get moving."
She moved onto another spray that was someone's name written in that artistic, hard-to-read graffiti style, and Liz couldn't decipher what it said. "How do we know if it's a Los Muertos tag?"
Junkrat threw his arms out wide. "They're all Los Muertos tags, Cookie! This is their turf!"
She examined it again, pursing her mouth in thought. After a moment, she held the can up to the brick and pushed down on the dispenser's top, sending out a smooth stream of black. With some work, she fashioned her strokes into something resembling a bomb with streaks dripping down from it.
She took a step back to admire her art, and Junkrat came over, joining her. He reached up with the yellow can and made little marks coming out around the top of the fuse so it looked lit and then stepped back next to Liz.
Slowly, they both cocked their heads to the side, and he gave her a hard pat on the back. "Perfect! Keep it up!" He scrambled to the gang's next sign. "Those little drips won't happen if you use less paint," he advised, already making another smiley tag.
After they had covered all of the marks in the area with their own, they hopped back in the truck and cruised around looking for more. Finding all the Los Muertos sprays in town took them into some sketchy spots, but they never stuck around long enough for anyone to see them, and after the first few stops, Liz found it was getting easier. She got a taste for it. The clinking sound of all those cans being shook, the fumes, the dribbles of paint on her fingertips, the discourse they were starting... It was fun.
She didn't think of the God AI at all. Or McCree.
The sun had finally made it all the way above the horizon, and they were beginning to see more people everywhere they went. They were still rolling around the city, starting to lap areas they had already been when a familiar bass line came on the radio.
"Bum bum bum bum ba-dum-dum
Bum bum bum bum ba-dum-dum"
Junkrat flashed a wide open-mouth smile, turning it up. "It's time for everyone's favorite music game, Under Pressure or Ice Ice Baby!"
Liz folded her arms. "That's obviously Under Pressure."
"Are you suuure?"
"Yes! Everyone knows Vanilla Ice added that extra 'ba-bum' in the middle of it."
"Hog?"
He grunted. "It's Queen."
At that moment, the guitar joined the bass. "Ok, fine, good job, everyone knows their twentieth century classical music. It's Queen…aaand David Bowie! Who wants what part?"
Roadhog growled. "I don't sing."
"Cookie? C'mon, I've heard you singing in the shower. You have no excuse!"
"Fine, but I get to be Bowie."
"Perfect!" He began to hum along with Freddie Mercury's scatting. "Mm ba ba bay. Bu bu bum bay bay…"
Liz joined in meekly. "Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you no man has hold
Under pressure –
"That brings a building down," Junkrat jumped in. "Splits a family in two!"
"Puts people on streets."
"Um ba ba be
Um ba ba be
De day da
Ee day da - that's okay! Hahahaaa!"
Liz couldn't help but smile at his enthusiasm. "It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends screaming…"
"Let me out!" He rang out with that natural falsetto he had when he got excited. "Tomorrow makes me higher higher hi-i-i-i…."
By then, Liz was really into their duet. "Pressure on people, people on streets."
"…..i-i-i-igh!"
He threw an arm over her shoulder as they both sang the line in harmony. "Turned away from it all like a blind man. Sat on a fence but it don't work."
"Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn."
He threw his other arm out, lifting it higher as the note rose. "Why-y-y-y? Whyyyyyyyyy….!"
They began to sway together in time and Roadhog just shook his head, but his fingers betrayed him, drumming the steering wheel.
"Love love love love love…."
"Insanity laughs, under pressure we're breaking!"
Junkrat was practically vibrating with energy as he broke it down. "Can't we give ourselves one more chance? Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love…"
By the time he had repeated the phrase "give love" more times than necessary, Roadhog had joined in for the ending, all three of them singing and swaying:
"'Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is ourselves."
Liz was absolutely enchanted by then, grinning stupidly at Junkrat as he carried it home. "Under pressure. Under pressure… Pressure." With the last few snaps of the song fading out, he noticed Liz staring at him. "What?"
"Nothing, just…" Liz pointed past him out the passenger window down an alleyway. "There! There's some more graffiti down that way!"
"Eh," Junkrat crowed. "I think we've done enough." He squinted at where she was pointing. "It's just a little thing anyway. Hardly worth our time."
"C'mon. One more could only help."
He chortled. "Alright, Cookie! If it means that much to ya."
Roadhog eased them down the alley, stopping as close as possible to the graffiti. "I'm staying here," he declared, keeping the engine running.
"Suit yourself." Liz took the yellow can and hopped down into the street in movements akin to dancing. Junkrat was a footstep behind, laughing at her merriment and writing his name over a pink sugar skull.
Putting in the extra effort for her last one, Liz took her time and made strokes with careful finesse.
Junkrat, finishing before her, came over to watch. He began to hoot with laughter. "Look at you! That's bloody brilliant!"
She put some final touches on it and stepped back. "You like it?"
It was a silhouette of Junkrat's crazy, flaming hair with his maniacal smile underneath. "I love it!" With a grin, he returned to where he had just done "Junkrat" and added a plus sign and "Cookie" underneath. "That's better!"
She giggled, and of course he joined in. When their laughter died down, she asked thoughtfully, "What about Roadhog?"
He mindlessly moved closer to her with a lingering smile. "If he wanted to be a part of this, he would have came with."
Still locked in a gaze together, neither one had noticed the conversation had dropped off until they heard shouting further down the alley. "¡Pendejos!"
They both snapped their attention that way and saw three men in neon skull makeup with guns running towards them. One popped off a shot, and Liz felt her hair breeze back as it whizzed past her head. "Shit!" she exclaimed, dropping her can.
Junkrat grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her to the truck, signaling for Roadhog to gas on it. With the truck already in motion, Liz almost lost her footing coming in, but Junkrat hung onto her, pulling her in and reaching around her to slam the door shut.
She lunged for the lock, instinctively hitting it as though their on-foot pursuers could somehow catch up with them. It wasn't until that moment that she realized that she was sitting in Junkrat's lap, his arms still around her waist.
Now acutely aware of her position, she also noted he wasn't showing any signs of intending to let her go. She was just staring straight forward, conflicted on whether or not she should move, when they hit a bump in the road. His grip around her tightened, and she felt her pulse rise with that queasy, floaty feeling again. Why him? Why am I catching feelings for him? She stiffened.
A light chuckle rumbled from Junkrat, slightly jarring his body underneath hers. "You alright there, Cookie?"
And I think he knows.
"…Yeah. I'm just tired."
In a moment of fuck it, she let her hands slide over his to see what he would do. Without hesitation, he slipped some of his fingers between hers, and her belly grew warm. It didn't feel wrong or awkward. It felt like home.
He briefly squeezed his grip on her fingers. "You two didn't get much sleep last night, didya?"
"Not really."
Roadhog mumbled, "I'm fine."
Junkrat withdrew his grasp from hers, consciously letting his hands loiter over her waist as much as possible. "We got a ways to go. No one would blame ya if you went in the back and took a nap."
She took that as her cue to get up. "Okay." Placing her palms on his thighs, she eased herself off of him and took her leave, laying down where he had been before and closing her eyes. She really was tired, but after that, she had a lot on her mind, and going right to sleep was no easy task.
