#I just really like it when ava threatens people it’s kinda hot. sorry

[saintlesbian]

haven’t posted art in a bit, here’s some more GH animal print concepts from my sketchbook lel

[heresathreebee]

No Touching

[Ava Starr x Female!Reader]

Summary: Friend dates with Ava always brighten your day (and night). Tonight is more enlightening than brightening, though… 

Previous Masterlist Next

Word count: 1.7 words

Warning(s): 14+ | angst, gay panic, dolls, 1 (one) racist antique, Steven Segal movie, chronic pain, tears.

AN: No actually I didn't bother to edit this, not doing that anymore, I think too much as it is. As always, I write with a black reader in mind but feel free to read even if you aren't. 🖤

You are eighty percent sure that you and Ava are dating.

85%... 78%... 81.5% sure.

It would probably be best if you cleared that up (but be cool about it though). You've started seeing each other more and more, and on purpose no less. Never a dull conversation, she's reluctant to share some of her life story but she's eager to know everything about you and you're more than happy to indulge. It's not like you know nothing about her; you just don't know the specifics of her past. 

Her parents died when she was young, she's ex-military (you think?), and she just came off of a huge life change and is getting used to what she calls 'real life.' You figure out she's a bit of a shut in and hates crowds, so you go out of your way to show her quiet places and introduce her to things she's never tried before. The bowl by your front door where you put your keys has 20 or 30 marbles from ramune bottles in it. You can't seem to ring her secret out of her, she just gives you this cryptic knowing smile and laughs at your attempts to sweet talk or annoy it out of her. 

You feel so close, growing closer still, she's quickly become the best part of your week, and you catch yourself thinking about her even when she's not with you. But you've never held hands. Hell, you've never even so much as brushed shoulders with her by accident. If you're dating, shouldn't you at least hug her goodbye? Is she even able to be into you like that?? 

You try not to let the panic set in as you stand outside of the antiques mall. You told her you liked old things and promised to show her your favorite pastime. God, how do you go about this? Should you just flirt with her and see how she reacts? Also how does one flirt? What if you’re fucking up and she really just wants to be friends? God knows you could use some friends right now. 

When she does appear, you do nothing. You continue to act relaxed and enjoy her presence, promising yourself you’ll ask about it afterwards. Ava’s wearing that grey jacket again made of a thin sports fabric and you make a mental note it might rain today. 

“Ava,” you stage whisper, waving her out of the jewelry section by the front desk and into the maze of vintage old clothes and furniture. “Back here, to the left.” 

Deep deep deep in a corner of the massive store, Ava stops dead in her tracks (you run into her but back away quickly) and stares. 

“This... is…” Ava covers her mouth with her hands to hold her laughter in, “ghastly.” 

The shelf is wide, with dark wood trimming and protective glass. The lights are almost fluorescent as they illuminate dozens of humanoid dolls. Some are cute, but some are also creepy, unnerving, down right scary. 

You point at the one with the Jonbenet Ramsey likeness and deep cracks in her porcelain face. It was overly large compared to the rest, having to have stuffed legs crossed like a sitting child. "I think I fear that one the most." 

You felt Ava shiver and didn't even realize you were standing that close. Her eyes darted from face to face, taking in every terrible and wonderful detail of them. You smelled coconut in her hair and tried to distance yourself a bit, missing the conversation. "Huh?" 

"I said they're haunted, aren't they?" 

"That one definitely is." You look over the other dolls. "I don't know, I think the rest are kinda cute. 'Cept that one: that one can fuck off straight to hell." 

Down on the second shelf where the light began to struggle in reach belied an offensive porcelain joke. The decoration portrayed an over animated child at play, with oil black skin, fat red lips, and bulbous eyes. This child was dressed in white rags and sucking on a wedge of fruit. Guess which one. Fucking guess, I dare you. 

"It's not even a fucking doll," Ava grumbled. "Why is it here?" 

You leaned in to whisper, "someday, I'm gonna buy that thing just to fucking smash it on the pavement." 

"Oh, what a lovely sound it would make." 

You hum. "I'm not gonna give nobody money for that trash. Can't steal it either, we'd never make it to the door." 

Ava looked over her shoulder with a cheeky smile. "We?" 

You simply tilt your head at her, and she huffs out a laugh. She nodded as if agreeing with you, then drifted away from the case like a wary woman. You toured through the rest of the store like a treasure trove of other people's memories, war memorabilia, ancient brand merchandise (why would anyone want a life size green m&m in their house? Who is this for?), and paintings from the dadeism era by unpopular artists. You ate lunch at the vendor shops in downtown and retired to your place for a movie. 

You must have fallen asleep at the beginning but you came to during some big shootout between Steven Segal and generic Latino drug dealer #7 when you accidentally dropped your hand into Ava's lap. Quickly, Ava withdrawals, thrusting herself to the other side of the couch as if in disgust. Your head jerks up in hurt and confusion, you hadn't even felt anything except a light tingling. You could barely hear the tv audio over the sound of blood rushing in your ears. 

"You can't touch me," Ava spat. "You just can't. Ever. Please…" 

"I'm sorry. Ava, I– I am so, so sorry I didn't mean to–" 

"It's not your fault and you didn't know," she mumbled and faltered, "it's just… you can't." 

You feel tears prick in the corner of your eyes as you try to swallow. "I'm sorry. Really. It won't happen again." 

Ava looked up at you guiltily and sighed. She folded her legs and eased herself off of the couch arm rest, hands tucked into her lap and unable to meet your eyes anymore. 

"It's not what you think it is," she explained. "I… I have a condition of sorts. And it… it hurts.” 

Her words put a hold on the tears threatening to spill from your eyes. “Like a… skin condition? Or nerves or something?” 

Ava nodded quickly. “Yes. yes, like a nerves thing. My um, my nervous system. It's chronic."

“Oh Ava,” you cover your heart with a breathy sigh, “of course! I wish I’d known I would have never–” 

“It’s not something I like to talk about.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m really glad you understand. Sorry I freaked out, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything.” 

You tried to blow a raspberry. “It’s whatever, didn’t hurt my feelings.” 

Yeah, you could hear the weakness of the lie, too. Still, Ava went and parked herself on the couch exactly where she was before– close but not too close. Warm but not quite touching. You were ready to let it slide and go right back to pretending to watch the movie when– 

“So what’s going on between us exactly? I like girls– I like you– and I don’t mean just in a friend sort of way– is it maybe sorta possible you might feel the same way about me?” 

Who said that? You? Honestly you’re feeling a little dizzy as you try and stare a hole in the tv screen. And Ava? Well at least she didn’t hold you in suspense for too long. She chuckled– and god you had to look. You had to know if she was laughing at you or with you. Your eyes snapped to her completely unmocking face. 

She blinked at you, bit her lip even. “Yes, I am.. Capable of liking girls. Might prefer them actually. And I definitely like you in a more-than-a-friend sort of way.” 

It takes a second to sink in. OK, it takes a hot minute to sink in. Like the movie ended and you walked Ava home and you slept in until 10 am and made omelettes for breakfast at noon and laid down on your floor staring at the ceiling until sundown. Yeah that kind of hot minute. And your lips curled into a soft smile because you had a girlfriend and she liked girls and you could not be happier than you are right now. 

~

Ava asked you to meet her on the corner by the antiques mall that night. You don’t know how but she got her grubby, thieving little mitts on that disgusting tar baby doll from the haunted doll shelf. You made her swear up and down she didn’t pay real money for it, then nearly pulled out your hair when you realized it meant she definitely stole it and– 

"How the ffffUCK do you just DO that?!" 

"Slight of hand," she mused. 

Fuck, and she was a geek. Yeah, you're definitely in love. She pushes the ugly thing into your hands and despite being cold porcelain it feels like it's burning. 

"Do the honors." 

There's no build up. No ceremony. You don't want to drag this out anymore. You take a swinging leap and spike that shit and watch it shatter into a hundred pieces with the most glorious sound you'll ever hear. You land in slow motion, already replaying the image of thick glass pieces cracking on the indigo pavement. You stand over your mess, triumphant. 

The quiet of the night time street drifts back to you, as does Ava. "I'll be honest I expected a big speech." 

You shrug. "I've been waiting too long to do that. Thank you, Ava. I mean it." 

"Oh believe me it was my pleasure." Ava swaggers closer to you and if you didnt know better you'd think she was going in for a kiss. "Tonight, the tar baby. Tomorrow, the world." 

You resist the urge to clap her on her shoulders and throw your hands in the air instead. "Sounds like a date!" 

Next

[lesbrarians]

Junkrat/Roadhog: Voyages Ch 2

I’m so happy you guys enjoyed the first chapter ahhh I hope you continue to like it! I’m gonna go to a Monday-Friday update schedule starting next week :> 

Title: Voyages

Characters: Junkrat, Roadhog

Rating: R

Summary:  After a rocky start and some ups and downs, Junkrat and Roadhog are officially partners, even if things haven’t progressed quite as far as Junkrat would like. With his treasure at the heart of their grandiose plans, they take their adventures overseas and leave their mark on the world, for better or worse. (Mostly for worse. They’re criminals.) Sequel to “Origins.”

---

He woke up to find that he had drooled all over Roadhog’s arm when he was conked out. “Whoops. Sorry, mate, got a lil’ somethin’ on ya there.” He rubbed off the saliva with his forearm and wiped it on his shorts before climbing to his feet. The alcohol’s effects had worn off in his sleep, leaving him dry-mouthed and slightly achy in the temples, but it was nothing that a few gulps of water couldn’t fix -- one of the packages Ava had mailed alongside them was a slab of flavored mineral water, an obscure Australian brand that she could provide justification for sending overseas. He propped his hands on his hips and scanned the cargo hold for his next conquest.

“Gross,” Roadhog told him, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Junkrat giggled. “Not like yer not used to havin’ my spit all over ya!”

“True,” Roadhog agreed with a huff of amusement. Junkrat was not the neatest of kissers.

“Y’know, there’s somethin’ we can do to pass the time...” Junkrat sniggered as he scrambled on top of a large box. He estimated that sitting on top of it would put him roughly at Roadhog’s eye level. He made grabby motions with his hands in an attempt to lure Roadhog over to him. “Mind takin’ off that mask of yers?”

Roadhog gave a grunt of assent as he stood up. He reached for the straps of his mask, and Junkrat felt his heart quicken. He technically knew what lay beneath, having felt the swathe of twisted, scarred flesh that marked Roadhog as a survivor of a nasty fire, but Roadhog still refused to show him his face entirely. Unfortunately, this time was no different, and he pushed the mask up just far enough to reveal his jaw and mouth.

“Still deprivin’ me of yer beauty, eh?” Junkrat said, unable to stop himself from bemoaning Roadhog’s reticent nature.

Roadhog’s wide grin was lopsided: a crooked grin with crooked teeth, and Junkrat loved it. He wondered how many times Roadhog had smiled without his noticing, shielded by the barrier of his gas mask. “Yeah,”  he said. “This is all you get.”

“Good enough for me! All I really need, roight?” Junkrat wrapped his arms around Roadhog’s neck and kissed him with all the fervour of a man starved of intimacy. He was enthusiastic, if sloppy, but his poor technique made for more opportunities to practise.

Roadhog took control of the kiss in the hopes of teaching Junkrat a better technique than all tongue, no temperance. A little restraint went a long way. Junkrat didn't mind relinquishing control, not when it meant Roadhog gripping his face in those two hands and leaving him -- literally -- breathless.

Junkrat gasped into Roadhog’s mouth, grinding up against him. He probably should have been embarrassed that he was already hard after a few minutes of making out with no below the belt touching to speak of, but Roadhog tended to have that effect on him. He didn’t care how he looked, shamelessly rutting against Roadhog’s belly, not when it felt so fucking good.

The last time things had gotten this hot and heavy between them, they'd been interrupted by the sound of approaching police sirens. The time before that, it was an ambush by a scraggly group of Junkers. Before that, their dinner had started burning. There was always a crisis to be dealt with, and Junkrat had nearly given up hope on ever getting laid. Now, however, there were no distractions, nothing to keep them from doing as they pleased. It was positively exhilarating. Junkrat pushed Roadhog away from him, putting just enough distance between them to give him room to hop off the box he was sitting on. He fell onto his knees with a breathless giggle and tugged at Roadhog’s belt, attempting to figure out how to unfasten the custom plate that served as a buckle. It took a great deal of concentration. His tongue poked out of his mouth as he tried to decipher the mechanism, which didn’t catch in quite the same way as his own belt buckle.

“Whole lotta work just to suck yer dick, but -- heh -- worth it!”

His focus was broken when Roadhog pulled on his hair, tugging his head up to look at him. It was too urgent to be sexy, and the odd look that twisted the corner of Roadhog’s mouth only confirmed that.

“No,” Roadhog said.

Junkrat dropped his hands and frowned up at Roadhog. “Whaddya mean, no? Thought y’were into this.”

“I am.”

This made less than zero sense to Junkrat. “Then why not?” he demanded to know.

“Because.”

It was as valid a reason as any, but it wasn’t one Junkrat was satisfied with.

He was still on his knees. “Fine,” he said shortly, climbing to his feet. At least the pressing situation in his pants had lessened in all the confusion. He jerked his head in the opposite direction, nodding at the far end of the cargo hold. “Just gonna dip for a bit, then.”

He slinked off to be alone and process, his mind a jumble of thoughts. He picked his way through the cargo hold to put as much distance as possible between him and Roadhog, and he took out his frustrations on the various packages that stood in his way.

Maybe looking through other people’s mail would help him forget the buzz of indignation and sudden sense of inferiority that clouded his head.

He recoiled in disgust at the first container he broke into. It took him a few moments to realise that he wasn’t looking at an actual omnic, but a detailed, life-sized photograph of one, a diagram depicting the contents of the package being shipped. He inspected it further.  

“This a fuckin’ sex bot?” he muttered to himself, simultaneously incredulous and revolted. It wasn’t an omnic, but a “personal pleasure device,” or so the label said. He hadn’t realised that there was a market for functional, non-sentient robots built for the pure purpose of masturbation -- but apparently there was a global demand for them, if some corporation was shipping one from Sydney to Tokyo. It might not have had any consciousness or free will, but it could walk, talk, and fuck. Too close to an omnic for his taste.

It wasn’t like Junkrat didn’t have any perverse ideas of his own, and he had certainly entertained the thought of building a mechanical device to help him get off, but you couldn’t pay him enough to fuck anything that even remotely resembled an omnic.

Rationally, he knew that the robot before him couldn’t think and possessed no artificial intelligence, but still, its visual similarity to the bots who could do so gave him the heebie jeebies. He tore open the box. “Disgusting,” he said aloud, critically eyeing the robot, which had clearly been built as a facsimile of a human woman with ridiculously exaggerated proportions. He raided the husk of the sex bot for any parts that he could repurpose for his own inventions, then vowed to use the box to take care of any personal business, because really, fuck whoever had ordered this.

He stuffed his pockets and the bag slung around his bony hips with various mechanical odds and ends.

Moving on, he thought to himself. Looking at the fake omnic for too long was gonna make him sick. Robots -- proper, non-feeling mechanical devices -- were only good when they didn’t represent the humanoid second-class citizens that he so detested.

He tried another box.

It took him a few moments to figure out what he was looking at. The case was filled with soft, white toys, each with a cartoonish happy face, pink blush markings, and green tendrils.

Junkrat picked up one of the plushies and studied it. He didn’t get it -- was it an onion? A peach? A lump of garlic? Why did it have tentacles? -- but it looked like something Roadhog would like. It was pretty cute.

He stuffed the plush toy behind his back. “Roadhog!” he called out as he started making his way back to their corner of the ship. He had cooled off significantly. So Roadhog wasn’t in the mood tonight. He guessed it made sense, they were in the middle of pulling off a complex operation. He’d try jumping his bones later, once they were settled in Japan.

Roadhog gave a questioning grunt and tilted his head at him. Junkrat climbed over the last box standing in his way. “Gotcha something.” He held out the plushie. “Happy birthday!”

“It’s not my birthday,” Roadhog said, but he accepted the gift. He held it in both of his hands, carefully examining it.

“S’called a pachimari,” Junkrat informed him, having read the label. “Thought maybe y’d like it. Cute stuff’s kinda yer thing, ain’t it?”

Roadhog squeezed it. It squeaked, causing them both to emit small noises of surprise. Junkrat hadn’t anticipated that bonus. Roadhog looked at him. “I love it,” he stated. The tacit approval made Junkrat glow with pride, and a grin threatened to split his face in two.

“I knew ya would! It’s all cuddly, roight? Like you!” He sat down and took the pachimari from Roadhog. He stuffed it behind his head as a makeshift pillow and leaned against their motorcycle crate. Roadhog promptly tugged it away from him, causing the back of his head to crack against the box.

“Ow!” Junkrat rubbed the base of his skull. “Watch it!” Roadhog didn’t apologise, responding only with a vaguely threatening hum. Junkrat shifted to use his his belly as a pillow instead.

“What’re we gonna do first when we land?” he asked Roadhog. Even with a direct path to Japan and the miracles of modern technology, it would still take them the better part of five days until they arrived in Japan. They might as well use the time to strategise.

“Get more of these,” Roadhog replied, tenderly cradling the pachimari in his hands.

Junkrat cackled. “Good a plan as any!”

 ---

 As they neared the last leg of their journey, Junkrat was going stir-crazy. He was used to being cooped up for a week or so; he did it every time he and Roadhog needed to lay low after a particularly successful string of crimes. The key difference between then and now, however, was their choice of shelter: a deserted house in the desolate Outback, long abandoned by Australians who had the sense to get away from the irradiated region, was very different from the storage hold of a cargo ship. There, they could venture outside briefly to get some fresh air and sunshine, or at least crack open a window. Here, not so much.

“I don’t know if I can make it, ‘Hog,” Junkrat moaned. At present, he was draped over a crate, arm flung over his eyes.

“You’re being overdramatic again.”

Junkrat feigned indignance. “What a load of crap, I have never been overdramatic a single day in my life!”

"You are always overdramatic," Roadhog pointed out.

Junkrat popped his head up to glare at him, then sat up straight. "Am not!"

They were too busy bickering to notice when the boat stopped rocking beneath them.

"Hang on," Junkrat said, shoving his hand into the snout of Roadhog's mask in an attempt to silence him. "D'you feel anything, or am I just mental?"

"You’re mental. What am I supposed to be feeling?"

Junkrat pointed to the floor of the ship, and it clicked.

"Get back in the box," Roadhog said, shoving Junkrat off of the crate he had reappropriated as a lounge chair and in the direction of their own crate. "We must be here."

"S'your fault we didn't notice," Junkrat said, being antagonistic purely for the sake of being antagonistic. Roadhog pushed him in response, and he giggled maniacally.

Roadhog hefted the lid of the crate, prepared to seal them both back in once they'd secured their hiding spot, while Junkrat climbed inside.

The door to the cargo hold, a scant few metres from them, slid open, and a slim man trundled in, loading cart in hand.

All involved parties froze: Junkrat mid-climb, one foot still in the air, Roadhog with the massive lid still in his arms, the dock worker still holding onto his trolley.

Junkrat was the first to break the silence. "G'day!" he said with a jaunty salute. Roadhog dropped the lid with a resounding thump. The dock worker responded, clearly nervous, but neither of them could understand Japanese.

Junkrat hopped down from the box and approached the man, who looked at him warily. “Mate, I got not the faintest idea of what yer sayin’, and even if I did, I don’t care. Roadhog?”  He held out his hand, fully expecting his bodyguard to understand what he was requesting. Roadhog tossed him his frag launcher. Junkrat promptly fumbled the catch and dropped it to the floor, although he made a quick recovery and pressed it to the man’s temple. “Anyway. So, howsabout you forget what ya saw, and we take our leave?” The man likely understood his words just about as much as they had understood his, but violence was the universal language. He nodded frantically, a droplet of sweat beading on his forehead.

"Righto!" Junkrat said brightly, lowering the grenade launcher and glancing back at his partner in crime.

Roadhog had used his time constructively and torn down the side of the crate, freeing the motorcycle and creating a ramp. Junkrat booked it back to the bike and leapt into the sidecar while Roadhog revved up the engine.

"Outta our way, ya dingus!" Junkrat shouted, and the cargo worker dove to the side, abandoning his trolley, which Roadhog promptly smashed into.

They peeled down the gangway and through a crowd of mail couriers, smashing through the first fence they saw.

"Okay, so we went to all that trouble, what with the rebreathers and all, and yer telling me that we coulda got away with just bargin' on-- camera!" They both smiled for the security feed, Roadhog taking his hand off the handlebars long enough to flash a thumbs-up, while Junkrat struck a dramatic pose. "--board? Forget it mate, I'm not even tryin' anymore. Let's just bludgeon our way through everything, eh? Who's gonna stop the two scary Australian Junkers? Caution's fer chumps."

Roadhog laughed, that deep, low chuckle that always reverberated in Junkrat's bones. "Fair enough," he said. They tore off down the streets of Tokyo, in search of a truck from which they could illegally siphon petrol for their motorcycle.

 ---

  The streets of Tokyo, Japan were vastly different from the wasteland of the Australian Outback. For one, Junkrat had never seen so many people in one place in his life. Even their trip to Sydney hadn't been so saturated with pedestrians. At first, it was overwhelming, all the hustle and bustle turning him skittish. However, once he realised that they could get away with committing crimes a lot easier when they were in crowds, any misgivings he had vanished.

Junkrat had every intention of scouting out the city's omnic population, but first, he felt they deserved a vacation. What better way to unwind than at an arcade?

He was glued to the soft drink machine. “Look, 'Hog, they got all kinds of fizzy drinks here!” He hadn't heard of any of the brands before. Most of them weren’t in English, but he could make out Kiki Cola, Murloc, and Nano. Despite having no idea what they tasted like, they were making him salivate. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Which, oh which, should I try first?” When he didn't get a response, he turned around. “Roadhog?”

Roadhog had abandoned him to check out the machines that dispensed an entirely different kind of loot: stuffed toys. There was one claw machine in particular that Roadhog was fixated on, the one affixed with a sign that read “UFO.” Junkrat recognised the pachimari that they had strapped to the back of their chopper.

Roadhog’s snout was pressed against the window of the machine, much as Junkrat’s tongue had been against the glass of the vending machine. Besides him was a small boy with a tuft of blue hair and a pachimari tank top, quietly sucking on a lollipop as he stared up at Roadhog.

Junkrat shoved the child aside with a shout of, “Move, he’s mine!” and squeezed next to Roadhog. “Looks like you found where baby pachimari come from.”

Roadhog gave a grunt of assent, and they were silent for a split second. Junkrat eyed the crane inside the machine, wishing that he had some yen so he could test it and study the machinery.

Roadhog spoke first. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Depends what yer thinkin’, mate. I'm thinkin’ we gotta liberate some of these city wankers of their wallets. I wanna see this beaut in action.”

“Not what I was thinking.”

“Or,” Junkrat continued, raising an imperious finger in the air to silence him, “we liberate these poor souls from their prison. We'd be doin’ ‘em a favour, really, givin’ them all homes. You, me, and a million pachimari. One big happy family!”

He could sense Roadhog's smile through his gas mask. “Yeah! That's more like it.”

Junkrat flashed a grin back at him. “You take care of them, then. I'm gettin’ us some bevvies to celebrate!” He unholstered his frag launcher and bounded off towards the vending machine.

He wasn’t going to discriminate between flavors now -- although he was making it his personal mission to sample them all during their time in Japan -- he simply launched a grenade at the nearest dispenser, causing the thick pane of glass to splinter, cracks spreading out from the point of impact. He finished the job by kicking it in, sending shards and cans flying, and grabbed all the soft drinks he could carry. There was a similar crash behind him as Roadhog punched the claw machine, his spiked brass knuckles absorbing the shock and smashing the window entirely.

Junkrat had overestimated how much he could hold at one time and promptly started spilling cans when he took off running. Roadhog lumbered after him, hot on his heels, and he was doing a much better job at holding onto his purchases than Junkrat was.

Junkrat gave up trying to carry them all and settled for guzzling what he could, letting the other cans fall as they may. “Oh, that’s good,” he said out loud, studying the can to figure out what brand it was -- Kiki Cola -- before tossing the empty can behind him.  

They burst out of the arcade into the afternoon sunlight, the small child wailing in the distance at the loss of all the plush toys.

Miraculously, they made it back to their new home base without too much trouble. Most people leapt out of their path, alarmed and intimidated by the two Junkers barrelling down the street.

“Gotta get me a cart or somethin’, next time we do that,” Junkrat said, pushing aside the tarp that served as their front door. “Or make use of them arms of yers! How the heck did ya manage to carry all those?” He gestured at the heap of pachimari still in Roadhog’s arms.

Roadhog shrugged. He carefully set the pile down on the ground. “Practice.”

Junkrat eyed him. “Betcha y’could carry me.”

“Bet I could,” Roadhog agreed. He sat down on the throne of pachimari with a whumph and the sound of a million squeakers going off at once. Junkrat giggled gleefully and joined him, squirming under Roadhog’s arm. He picked up one of the plush toys and squeaked it, over and over, until Roadhog finally ripped it out of his hands. Deprived of entertainment, Junkrat took stock of their new, albeit temporary, home.

It had been impossible for them to find an abandoned place to squat, given their determination to stay within the more urban areas of Tokyo, where concentrations of omnics were highest. An empty apartment did not stay empty for long. They had been ruminating on alternative options -- Roadhog had suggested staying under the bridge, but Junkrat had been adamant that he was “not gonna share with a buncha derros” -- when they stumbled across a portion of the city that had been blocked off with fences and tarps, surrounding several half-built skyscrapers.

They couldn’t read the sign that marked the company that was behind the construction zone, but by the looks of the logo and some general deductions, they had concluded that it was meant to be the site of future residences for omnics.

As it turned out, Japan had a relatively small population of omnics. The country was an island with limited space, and as such, there was a nationwide push to relocate omnics to the mainland. Robots were one thing; omnics were actual citizens who needed resources and living space. With new regulations in place and political, pro-omnic protests, Tokyo was redeveloping a portion of the city to house omnics with no place to go, providing them with dwellings that suited their non-human needs.

It was the stupidest thing Junkrat had ever heard of, and he had had quite a lot of stupid ideas in his lifetime.

The fence had been plastered with signs, mostly likely warning individuals not to trespass and espousing the dangers of entering a construction site with no safety gear. They were all in Japanese, however, and the only sign Junkrat had recognised was a bright red stop sign.

Stop signs didn’t stand in his way, nor Roadhog's: he always had preferred to think of them as “suggestions” rather than “rules,” and Roadhog's command of the road entailed blowing through red lights more often than not. With a brash laugh, Junkrat had immediately instructed Roadhog to toss him over the fence.

They'd found a fairly solid structure with tarp tacked between its pillars to protect the half- finished interior from the elements. It was a risky choice of dwelling, but given the dearth of heavy machinery, they had concluded that construction had been halted due to some bureaucratic nonsense or other.

“Maybe the good people of Tokyo are seein’ sense!” Junkrat had speculated. “Those heaps of junk don't deserve fancy flats.”

It was a good decision, Junkrat thought as he burrowed deeper into the pile of pachimari. Anywhere was home as long as he had Roadhog by his side, but having the basic human comforts of a relatively enclosed, private space made it all the better.