#❝ & * visage ─ ‹ amelie lacroix. ›

[graciieuse]

[storytell]

TAG DUMP: AMELIE LACROIX

widow’s kiss ;; IC . WIDOWMAKER cherchez la femme ;; ASK . WIDOWMAKER sleeper agent ;; OPEN . WIDOWMAKER slowed heart ;; VISAGE . WIDOWMAKER arachnophobia ;; HEADCANONS . WIDOWMAKER numbness ;; MUSINGS . WIDOWMAKER sparkling water ;; CRACK . WIDOWMAKER honhonhon ;; DASH COMMENTARY . WIDOWMAKER

[ariiolo]

tag drop part 2.

[gyromitra-esculenta]

trying to defeat writer’s block be like throwing stuff at wall and seeing what sticks. so, r76 excerpts out of that one au i was not supposed to write, and maybe sleeps. whatevers. *plants face into desk and sleeps*

The sky is on fire, the rushing clouds washed in crimson rumble with voices of many, and smoldering ash clogs the air, but Jack reaches out with his hand towards the disappearing back of a man he feels he should know – even if he is not sure this is a man, a human, because no human has claws dripping with blood.

Everything is rubble and destruction, death and agony, twisted life and undeath springing up in tangled boughs ripping streets and buildings alike as he falls into a molten blaze in his chase, only to wake up to a lullaby that brings up something buried deep and forgotten.

“Nice of you to join us, sunshine,” red eyes morph into brown, almost black, and Jack releases the breath caught in his throat when Lena elbows Genji and pushes him back.

“Down, dragon boy, I need to check Jack’s…” She fiddles with something on the side of his visor. “Okay, luv, you’re good to go.”

“Sure, sure, baby. And why the fuck are we supposed to go after that Lacroix babe?” Genji rolls his eyes, stretching.

“Don’t question orders. Execute them,” Winston gets up. “Lena?”

“Okay, dears, we’re going to put Amelie Lacroix, hiding out in her luxurious apartment, into our custody. You know, the president of Talon corporation, and they have their finger in so many pies they actually run out of hands.”

“Protective custody,” Winston adds.

“Oh boy, this is going to be so much fun,” Genji snorts, flicking his fingers.

“With the bloodbath that went down in Talon headquarters, which she is tied to directly, we are expecting resistance,” Hanzo mutters under his breath.

“We are doing it by the book,” Winston cuts in, irritation clear in his voice.

“Because,” Lena chirpily adds, “we think that the head honchos at Talon will try to keep her real quiet if anything. If you know what I mean. Chop-chop quiet. Glasgow smile quie…”

“Enough, Lena,” Winston grumbles when APC stops. “You come with me, Hanzo with Reinhardt, and you, Genji, with Jack.”

“Fuck it, why do I have to go with him?” Jack sighs in agreement.

“Because you’re being a luv, as usual,” Lena giggles, jumping out. And Jack… Jack has a very bad feeling about this all as his HUD flickers.

*

There is a certain dreamlike quality to the column of fire that rises into the sky and the blast wave feels like a caress as the red eyes turn towards him.

“Always rushing in, Sunshine.”

Jack knows he should not survive this, the wind, the debris, the heat, but somehow he hears Lacroix’s level voice above as his vision cuts out.

“We need to run the containment protocol.”

*

“He’s going into cardiac,” one of the surgeons mentions at the pain that blossoms in his chest. “Give him two hundred for a start.”

Somehow, Jack sees himself on that table, all tinted in blood-red, and monsters tear at his flesh.

*

The explosion was real. It happened, the electromagnetic storm painting the sky visible through glass roof with pastel colors is a proof of that and Jack knows he should be blind. He stared right into the fiery red inferno.

Then maybe he is blind as he follows a vaguely human visage, a truly more animalistic thing with claws dripping blood, through the battlefield the hospital has become.

Soon he realizes that the windows are merely screens, broken, repeating a flashing image of the artificial sky. They are underground.

*

“Oh, thank god, Jack, here,” Lena calls him over the communicator.

“Sergeant Morrison, come, step into the chamber,” Lacroix adds on the intercom. ‘Said the spider to the fly’, Jack chuckles darkly to himself just as he does what he is told.

“Amelie, uh, just asking, but are his lil swimmers going to be okay after that?” God, leave it to Lena, to ask the important and cringe-worthy questions.

“That, Cherie, should be the least of our concerns.”

The smell of ozone hits his nose and Jack can feel the hair on his arms rise with static electricity. Everything goes to shit, the doors on the other side of the room blast open with an explosive charge, and the world becomes dreamlike again as the intruders, the ones hunting them, turn their guns at each other, dark tendrils of something living wrenching their hands and crushing them at the same time.

He thinks he is bleeding as he falls down.

“What’s the matter, Sunshine?” The beast by the tree asks, coiled in darkness, too many teeth and eyes burning red twitching in the shuddering mass crawling along the fluid surface. The claws move over his face. “Aren’t you getting too close to the fire for the comfort?”

“Have I ever stepped out of it?” It ripples in mirth.

“You were free for a while,” the darkness melts against him and yields under his fingers.

“I think I forgot a lot,” Jack whispers looking into ‘J’ and ‘G’ carved into the bark.

“Harbinger project. Only explanation why la poule brought you here at all,” Gerard turns back. “Finish it up.”

He braces for the pain but something almost physical pulls him back and throws him to the ground. The rest is training, repetition and that little thing that refuses to be satiated with blood spilled in the back of his mind.

*

“You mean Shrike. As in, the Shrike?” Lena giggles. “And you are helping us now why?”

“Because,” the garbled voice on the other side answers, “if Morrison gets his ass blown up, there will be nothing to stop Reaper.”

“Right. Reaper.”

“Don’t joke around, girl. This monster can, and will, bring the end of the world as we know it. The Harbinger is the only thing that can stop it and the little monsters they spawned out of it.”

The Shrike speaks as if he knows. But he knows nothing, not really. Jack feels his lips curl up a little bit when he sees the apparition, a bloodied long-limbed monster, stalking along the wall after the panicking soldiers.

Stop it? No. No-one can. No-one will.

“I see you.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, Lena. How’s your status?”

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

“So are you going to stand here and talk your ass off or are you going to get me out of here?” Sombra blinks in confusion, not used to having her monologues and gloating interrupted, and Jesse tries to hide his snicker behind his hand.

“I could kill you, old man!”

“So could a determined sheep.”

“Did you… did you just compare me to a sheep?” Sombra squawks indignantly.

“I’m just not very fond of sheep. It’s mutual, I’m told.” Morrison knocks on the reinforced glass. “The fucking fish tank?”

“I told you, witch, that if Reyes is invested in this guy, he must be a piece of work.”

“And you look like you never outgrew your weeaboo phase,” Morrison interjects with more knocking.

“Ha, I think I like him regardless of him calling me a sheep,” this time Sombra smirks. “I say we keep him, idiot.”

“Ah, fer fuck’s sake,” Jesse shoots the panel and kicks it in, only to be met with a vicious jab to the face in return. “What the fuck?”

But Morrison is outside and turns his eyes on Sombra. The witch teleports a good ten meters away while Jack rolls his shoulders.

“I owe you both for making my life shit more than it already was.”

“Yeah, but no,” Sombra sticks out her tongue. “Get a gun, old fart, we have company, and I can’t hack them all.”

“That’s your problem. I’m going after Lacroix and Ziegler.”

Jesse sits up and stuffs the paper tissue he dug out of his coat pocket up his bleeding nose.

“Well, partner, I reckon they will both be where we are actually going, so joining forces, not that bad idea.”

Jack considers the idea.

“Any of you do funny stuff, I shoot you.”

“Sheep notwithstanding, I think I like him even more now, brother.”

“Stuff it, sister.”

[graciieuse]