#can you tell i've been reading too much damn retirement fic lately

[nebulein]

it was so good. now im sad. my bbs!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺

(context)

Sorry, sorry. If you spy the angst tag on my 1988 posts, tread with caution. I just can't seem to help myself 😅 🤷‍♀️

Also warning the below will not entirely fix it but...

Originally the fic concept was supposed to go with a heartbreak ending of one of them leaving and one staying and it's the separation that finally makes them realize how much they depended on the other always being there, even when they were barely speaking, deep down there was always this rock of the other person going through the same things, through thick and thin, the highs and the lows, and now even that is gone. And if you really wanna break your heart, listen to Wrecked or while thinking about this, cause... yeah.

Days pass by and my eyes they dry And I think that I’m okay ‘Till I find myself in conversation fading away The way you smile, the way you walk, The time you took to teach me all that you had taught Tell me how am I supposed to move on These days I’m becoming everything that I hate Wishing you were around but now it’s too late My mind is a place that I can’t escape your ghost Sometimes I wish that I could wish it all away One more rainy day without you Sometimes I wish that I could see you one more day One more rainy day Oh I’m a wreck without you here Yeah I’m a wreck since you’ve been gone I’ve tried to put this all behind me I think I was wrecked all along Yeah I’m a wreck

But. I feel like that ending at least leaves the door kind of open. Maybe this is the darkest valley that they need to go through, the separation they never got that they need to find out who they are on their own, without the other always there. What it means to just be Jonny. To just be Pat. And it hurts at first, boy howdy does it hurt, but sometimes we need to shed the past to find out what we want in life. Jonny gets traded at the deadline, but the Blue Jackets flake out in the second round. Does another stint with the Kraken and then retires at the end because his heart just isn't in it anymore, his body to banged up. Goes on all the yoga retreats he can find, spends some time tanning in Sedona, smokes up in Kathmandu, finds a guru and microdoses on shrooms and finally returns to Canada ready to start the next chapter in his life. Kaner signs another year with the Hawks at a discount that makes everyone lose their marbles, but Pat put down roots, he doesn't want to leave and he likes Richardson, but seeing the C on Seth's chest grates in a way he didn't anticipate and it's hard to break records on a team that can't play its way out of paper bag.

He's gonna become a GM one day, of course. Starts out as player development consultant, works his way up. Maybe takes some MBA classes. Meets Jonny on an stupid alumni golf tournament he got roped into, and it's good but also weird. He can't quite put his finger on it, but Jonny's different. Still the same kind of dry humor and lameass comebacks, still thinks of himself as a way better golfer than he actually is, but when Jonny talks about his travels, about his new endeavors, a clean water project down in Peru and something to do with kites and energy? Pat doesn't know, he wasn't really listening, caught by how the wrinkles on Jonny's face are visible all the time now, not just when he's smiling. But also, he's kind of smiling a lot, looking relaxed in a way that Pat hasn't seen, the tight cast around his mouth that had been there almost 24/7 back when they'd still played on the Hawks together entirely gone, the slant of his shoulders so different from the hunched up Jonny in his memories. He's got a tiny bit of a belly now, which is maybe most surprising of all. It looks good on him, though, gives him a mellowness that wasn't there before.

Jonny's different, is the point, and Kaner finds himself intrigued.

[kayla-marie-writes]

The prologue to one of my House of Ashes fics, "Sacrifice", and yes, I post song lyrics when they inspire the chapter. I have a writing Playlist here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5AZJaS9xpoNuekaUl4S34S?si=3Upqyy7BR-StR0pGmgLgHA&pi=W1BWqCX9TGeSo

Ooh, death

Won't you spare me over 'til another year?

Well, what is this

That I can't see

With icy hands getting hold of me

Well, I am Death

None can excel

I open the door to Heaven and Hell

Ooh, death

Ooh, oh death

Too late, too late

To all farewell

My soul is doomed, so heed me well

As long as God

In Heaven dwell

Your soul, your soul shall scream in Hell

Oh, death

Ooh, death

Ooh, oh death

-A Conversation With Death-Khemmis-2017-

-NICK-

"It's over," Talia murmured, sinking to the ground.

"Yeah, that's the last of them," Rachel confirms with a tired sigh.

"Salim!" Jason ran over to our new ally to check him for further injuries. "You ok?"

"I'm alright," Salim responded to him with so much tenderness that I turned away, feeling like I was interfering with their moment.

I'm shocked as hell, to say the least, that Jason had fallen for Salim. Not because of his sexuality, we know about it already, and we've chosen to protect him because of it... but because of his initial intolerance towards the Iraqi people. I was the first to meet Salim when he saved my life.

Eric and Rachel were being chased by the rest of Salim's former unit and commander, Dar. To our shock, he helped us fight them off, and he killed Dar before he could kill Eric. From what Salim told us, he had been forced to join the ambush, just as he had been forced to serve in the Ground Forces. It was his son's birthday, and he was meant to retire...

Jason had been the only holdout. Openly hostile and suspicious of Salim's motives, no matter how many times Salim had saved our lives. To his credit, Salim never gave in to it. He remained cautious and civil with Jason. I don't know what the hell happened between them, but when a hoard of vampires attacked us, one of them dragged Jason off, and Salim tore after them without a second thought.

I'm not sure how long we had been separated from them, but by the time we met again, things had changed between them...looking back, I wondered how much of that intolerance came from how he'd been raised. We know the stories of how his father reacted when Jason realized that he wasn't straight. Jason had been at war with himself long before we got here.

I guess Salim helped him through some of it, somehow. I'm not going to ask unless Jason wants to tell me. He's used to bottling things up to "be a man." It took him a long time to open up about the Green Zone, but he did. In turn, I'd confessed about my affair with Rachel, which made the team implode.

Rachel hadn't been able to tell Eric yet, even though I'd asked her to... many times. Eric and I had already fought a few times until we asked her to decide. On top of that, I'd hurt Talia, another close friend on the team. What shocked the hell out of me was when she slapped Rachel, not giving a damn about rank, and Rachel didn't reprimand her... she apologized.

Usually, I could get a read on Talia. Not this time. When I tried to pull her to the side, she recoiled as if I'd burned her. After hitting Rachel, I thought I'd be next. I waited for it: the lecture about having an affair with a married woman, the wrath I've come to know, and loathe. This time was different. She withdrew. The light in her eyes dimmed, and I realized that there was one thing worse than her anger: disappointment.

After we talked everything out, at Joey's insistence, Rachel realized that even though she had felt something with me, she wanted to reconcile with Eric. It stung, but at least she admitted that she shouldn't have gotten caught up, that she should have tried to fix things. I've been in a dark place since that checkpoint. She had been a highlight for me these past few weeks...so has Talia, who hasn't looked at me or spoken to me since.

That's when all hell broke loose, with vampires swarming us on all sides. We didn't have any more time to process what happened or deal with it. We lost Joey and Merwin in the assault. I'd thought we lost Jason, too, until we saw him again. After that, we had to put our shit on the back burner and survive.

**********************************

We fucking did it...I don't know how the fuck we survived, but we did. Well, not all of us...Merwin, Joey, and Clarice didn't make it. After what felt like the longest six minutes of my life, sunlight filtered through the hut, where we took a stand against the vampires.

"Air support is here," Eric sighs in relief.

"Shit!" Jason swore. "They-we gotta tell 'em that Salim is one of us! We can't let 'em-"

"Hey, we'll do whatever we have to!" Rachel insists. "Okay? Breathe."

"As long as they don't catch on to your relationship, it'll help our case," I added pointedly.

"Right," Salim nods. "I suppose there's intolerance all over."

"Unfortunately," Talia sighs, still not making eye contact with me. "We won't let anything happen to either one of you."

"...Thank you," Jason slurs.

We're exhausted. If I had to guess, we've been down there for twenty-four hours, maybe more. A lot went down in that temple. Hopefully, we can figure it out once we get the fuck out of here. I know I hurt Talia with what I've done, and now I'm paying for it. 

"Wait," Eric murmured. "Something's off."

"The helos have landed," Rachel frowned. "But why haven't they come inside?"

"...They've surrounded the hut," Talia realized after she perked up her ears.

"Because of Salim?" Jason wonders, throwing the man behind him. "They'll have to get through me first!"

I don't know if it was dread or fatigue, but the air felt heavier. The heat was already intense, especially when we had been trapped underground for God knows how long. Whatever CENTCOM is doing, I hope they get in here soon. I'm not doing too well. I don't think any of us are.

"Jason, please," Salim pleads. "Provoking them isn't a good..."

Before he could finish his sentence, he pitched forward and collapsed.

"Shit!" Jason swore as he caught him. "What the hell?! What's taking CENTCOM so long?!"

I ran over to the two of them as I heard Eric cry out for Rachel, who passed out, too. What the hell?

"...Gas..."

Eric and I looked down to see that Talia was right. CENTCOM was gassing the place. I don't understand why. We covered our noses and mouths, but it was too late for Jason. Unfortunately, we've already breathed some of it in, and soon, Eric and Talia were out, too. I tried to hold out for as long as possible, but I knew I couldn't for much longer.

The last thing I saw were gas masks and hazmat suits as they breached the hut...but what they said scared the shit out of me:

"Test subjects secured. Prepare for extraction."

If it interests you, it can be read here:

[nitewrighter]

Would you write some canon fic around the same time your Sun Fic happened but from Mercy's pov? I've been curious to know how she held up when most of her peers where leaving ow one by one until she was the only one left. Not to mention how stressed she must have been with the tension between Reyes and Morrison.

The sun fic is here for anyone who hasn’t read it yet!

---

She kept making too much coffee. That was what kept throwing her off. She could try to be mindful about it, she could try to say “No one is coming” when she would measure out her beans before she ground them, but saying that stung, and stung deep. It never really occurred to Mercy how much Genji figured into her daily interactions and how much the rest of it was work until he left. Tracer was exhausting without Genji to bounce between them, and while Winston was about the same, now he kept asking ‘how she was doing,’ and she had to keep saying ‘fine’ because there was too much to unpack. Where was she supposed to start? Mei and the Ecowatch Antarctica team were all dead. Reinhardt had been unceremoniously shoved into retirement. Gérard Lacroix was dead. Amélie Lacroix was missing-presumed-dead. Genji was missing. Captain Ana Amari was missing-presumed-dead. Liao was dead. Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes were barely talking. Talon was getting bolder and bolder even with Doomfist imprisoned, which raised the question of how effective Tracer’s strike team actually was. 30 million orphans from the Omnic Crisis were now being fed into a thriving underground economy of mercenaries, black market technicians, and human trafficking. More governments were investing in private security corporations rather than Overwatch, disease outbreaks were blooming in the most vulnerable communities all around the world faster than Overwatch’s relief teams could respond, and all the while Moira O’Deorain was thriving like a cancer in the chaos.

And here Mercy was.

With her too-full coffee carafe at 11:30 PM on a Wednesday night.

The worst part about missing him was how sneaky he was. She used to be able to speak to an empty room and he wouldn’t be able to resist giving himself away to say something snarky. She still did it, mindlessly.

“This cell culture just does not want to cooperate,” she said, pulling away from her microscope, only to find herself speaking to no one. His absence ached like a phantom limb.

He’d know a lot more about phantom limbs than you would, that stinging voice spoke in the pit of her chest.

She pushed away from the microscope in her swivel chair and forced herself to stand up, feeling her exhaustion in every curve of her spine. Just walk around, come back to this with fresh eyes, she thought to herself, refilling her mug. She walked out of the lab and looked down the hallway of Zurich headquarters. The emptiness of the halls had more of a foreboding to them now. Before, she loved the liminality of the bustling-in-daytime headquarters in its silence at night, but now that silence felt hollow. She sipped her coffee and looked out the window at the line of tents outside the headquarters’ main gate. Jack’s statue had been vandalized--not torn apart, thankfully, but relentlessly graffitied. They had stationed security bots for it, but if there was one thing all the protestors had proven, it was that even civilians with enough anger and willpower always found ways to get their point across. 

“I never wanted that damn statue,” a gruff voice spoke next to her and Mercy’s head jerked over to see Jack Morrison a few steps away, looking out that same window.

Mercy blinked a few times.

“How goes the lab work, Doc?” said Jack, not looking at her.

“Slow,” said Mercy with a shrug, “It’s like that sometimes.” 

“Mm,” Jack grunted in acknowledgment. A long pause passed between them.

“You’re up late as well,” said Mercy, smiling slightly, “Strategizing with Reyes?”

“No,” his voice was flat.

Mercy bit the inside of her lip. “If it sounded like I was implying anything, please know that was not my inten--” she started.

“I know,” said Jack, “Gabe--Commander Reyes and I have agreed we both need more... perspective.”

“New approaches can help,” Mercy offered, but she knew there was far more weight to what Jack was saying about his and Gabriel’s partnership. Jack was very good at spinning things at this point--and she could tell how much he hated it. “Is there anything I can...?” she trailed off. Jack’s eyes flicked to her only momentarily and Mercy’s lips thinned.

“It’s fine,” said Jack, “Just... keep at your work.” 

Mercy gave a glance back out at the tents outside Zurich’s gates. “You know, the hard part about being in an international organization, it becomes a lot easier for people to treat you like you don’t belong anywhere...” she pushed her hair back from her face, “But--we’ve done good work. We’ve done wonderful things. We’ve helped people---”

“That’s a lot of past-tense there, Doc,” said Jack.

“I--We’re helping people--they love Tracer!” Mercy felt desperate and a bit foolish at this point.

“They do, don’t they?” said Jack, not looking at her.

“She believes in us...” said Mercy.

“Do you?” said Jack.

Mercy looked off. “I... I should be getting back to work.”

“Right,” said Jack. Mercy straightened her labcoat and moved to walk off.

“Doc?” said Jack.

“Yes?” said Mercy.

Jack’s face was half in shadow, the light from the window only making out his craggiest features and highlighting the gray of his hair. His lips parted with a slight inhale and for a few seconds Mercy thought he was going to apologize. How entitled do you have to feel to assume that? she thought to herself, But... between the biotic rifle, Moira, and Genji....

Jack seemed to catch himself. Any apology he might have would be too little, too late now. “You... take care of yourself, okay?” he motioned with his head toward the line of tents outside the gate, “Weird, angry people out there.”

“We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t weird, angry people,” said Mercy with a slight smile. 

Jack huffed a little and turned back to look out the window, “Maybe we should try recruiting with the protestors,” he said wryly. 

“Maybe,” said Mercy. It does feel so empty here, she thought, but she gave a glance over to Jack, “Get some rest, Commander.”

“You too,” said Jack.

Mercy rounded a corner in the headquarters and was now walking along a hallway looking down into the courtyard garden below. 

“In a way, I am a bit jealous, Doctor Ziegler,” she remembered Genji’s words down in that garden, “Overwatch will always need your abilities, but if in the end, they’re a peacekeeping organization, eventually they won’t need a weapon...”

“You’re not a weapon,” she had told him, “You’re not. I can’t let everything Overwatch touches become a weapon.”

Mercy let her fingertips trail along the glass of the window before she gave a glance to a door where the name next to the door had been blacked out. It should have read ‘Captain Ana Amari’ but she wasn’t here anymore. Mercy kept walking, descending a stairwell deeper into the lower levels of the building. 

“Are you staying just for the team’s sake?” he had asked her on their last mission together, “For mine?”

Stop it, She thought to herself, reaching the bottom of the stairs and continuing her brisk walk down the halls of Blackwatch’s quarters, You’re only making it worse. Just focus. Don’t think about him. Keep walking. Stop thinking about him. Keep walking. Just keep--

She stopped and found herself staring at a too-familiar door. Genji insisted on not even having his name on a plate next to his door, but she knew it all the same. Her hand touched the cool metal of the door. You’ve checked it before, she thought, You did everything you could short of pulling the wiring out of the walls looking for some clue he may have left you as to where he went. He doesn’t want to be found. He doesn’t want you in his life. You’re making it worse. You’re making it---

She touched her key card to the panel next to the door and it slid open. She stepped inside. The room was completely empty...it was bare even when he was living in it, she didn’t know why she thought she would find anything new looking in it now. 

Her comm buzzed at her side and and she pulled it from the pocket of her labcoat. ‘ENCRYPTED CHANNEL’ displayed on her comm’s holographic projection and she arched an eyebrow. Her high position in Overwatch meant her own channel was extremely secure--there was no way an encrypted channel would be able to access her unless she had given them a prior access code. The only people she had given that access code to were...

She quickly opened her comm. “Genji?!” she spoke breathlessly.

“...Sorry, Doc, hope I’m not too much of a disappointment,” a warm voice came on the other end.

“Jesse,” Mercy huffed and her shoulders slumped, “I’m sorry I just thought...”

“I get it. So still no word from him?”

“Still no word,” said Mercy, glancing up at the chin-up bar that was still installed overhead. She smiled a little, “But I must say, it’s been a while since I heard from you! Why are you calling from an encrypted channel?” Her face suddenly dropped, “McCree--why are you calling from an encrypted channel?” she asked, tension coiling in her stomach.

“...I’m not on any more Blackwatch ‘vacations’ if that’s what you’re asking,” said McCree, “I’m not...” McCree audibly huffed on the other side of the line, “Doc, are you alone?”

“Yes?” Mercy answered hesitantly, looking around Genji’s room.

“Okay,” McCree took a steadying breath on the other side of the line, “Doc, I know Genji leaving broke your heart, and I don’t want to do that to you, so that’s why I’m callin’... but... the truth is, I’m gone.”

“Gone--what do you mean--” Mercy’s face scrunched up in confusion and then her eyes widened, “McCree, you can’t--Your contract with Blackwatch---”

“...Will paint a target on my back, I know, but...this isn’t me hittin’ the dusty trail and ridin’ off into the sunset. The truth is, shit’s going down, Doc. I don’t know how much I can tell you without putting you into danger, but all I can tell you is that it’s not safe there. Wheels are fallin’ off, lines are being drawn, and you gotta get out while you can.”

“No--no---you can’t just leave me in the dark like this,” Mercy was pacing back and forth, “McCree, I can’t just leave, I have people counting on me. Overwatch’s relief work---”

“Shit--I gotta go,” McCree cut her off, “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get on this channel again, Doc, but--please stay safe. I promise I’ll bring the chip back when the dust settles.” 

“Bring what chip back--” Mercy heard a click on the other end, “McCree? McCree!?” she brought her comm away from her ear only to read ‘DISCONNECTED’ on the holo-projection. “Oh Jesse, what are you doing?” she said quietly. She looked around Genji’s room. “...what am I doing?” she said even more softly.

But there was no one around to answer that.